"BRARY OF CONGRESS 

0a013SS3S5A 



LECTURES 



HISTORY OF LITERATURE, 



FROM THE GERMAN OF 

FREDERICK SCHLEGEL. 

J' 



A NEW EDITION, 



WITH A SERIES OF 



QUESTIONS FOR EXAMINATION IN SCHOOLS. 



BY 

JOHN FROST, LL.D., 

LATE PROF. OF BELLES-LETTEES IN THE HIGH SCHOOL. PHILADELPHIA. 



PHILADELPHIA: 
MOSS & CO., 418 MARKET STREET. 

1867. 






Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1848, by 
MOSS & BROTHER, 

in the office of the Clerk of the District Court for the Eastern 
District of Pennsylvania. 



48856b 
21. 4, '86 



PREFACE 



The influence, exerted by the brothers Augustus Wil- 
liam, and Frederick Von Schlegel, affords one of the nnost 
remarkable examples on record of the power of intelligent 
criticism to determine the character of subsequent literature 
This influence was by no means confined to their own 
country, Germany. In first opening the eyes of the Eng- 
lish to the real character of Shakspeare, and the true grounds 
of his preeminence, Augustus Schlegel taught that nation a 
freer style of composition, a wider range of art, while Fred- 
erick, through the translation of his lectures, instructed 
them in the value of much that was national and excellent, 
though previously neglected, in their own literature. In 
France their influence was still more sensibly felt in the 
demolition of the national prejudices, in favour of the 
antique, and the founding of what is called the romantic 
school of dramatic composition. Madame de Stael herself 
was not more instrumental in giving its liberal character to 
recent French literature, than were her friends the SchJe- 
gels. 

The occasion of Frederick Schlegel's writing his ^^ Lec- 
tures on the History of Literature^^ is hinted in the follow 
ing brief note prefixed to the first edition of the translation. 

" The following Lectures were delivered at Vienna in 
the winter of 1812. They were published by their author 
by way of furnishing German readers with a clue to the 



1^ PREFACE. 

general scope and tenor of those opinions which he had 
before expressed in a variety of Historical and Critical Es- 
says. L is believed that none of Frederick Schlegel's 
writings have ever before been translated into English ; 
but the name of his brother, Augustus William Schlegel, 
who has been his coadjutor in the conduct of almost all his 
works, is now as much respected, both in France and Eng- 
land as it has long been in Germany." 

The character of the lectures favours this theory of the 
translator respecting the author's intention. By means of a 
masterly coup d^ ail over the whole field of ancient and 
modern literature, he is enabled to point out and characterize 
what he considers to be really original and valuable, and 
to throw into the shade all that had not contributed to the 
progress of intellect, By examining the outlines of every na- 
tion's literary character, he detects what is essential and en- 
during and thus fortifies his favourite hypothesis respecting 
the elements — the only real basis of a genuine national litera- 
ture. At the sair.etime, by tracing the progress of philoso- 
phy, and pointing out its influence, he inculcates his peculiar 
views respecting this important element of literature. The 
earnest and searching spirit which he has carried into all 
his inquiries, and the boldness and candour with which he 
always declares their results, render it still more probable 
that these lectures were intended as a sort of confession of 
literary faith — a summary of the theoretical views to which 
a life, spent in laborious and diversified study had conducted 
the writer. Such a work is well fitted to be a text-book of 
our higher schools in the History of Literature ; because it 
winnows the wheat from the chaff and presents only the 
former as the mental food of the student. What is original 
and influential in the whole literature of the world is brought 
forward into the foreground and presented to the young stu- 



PREFACE. V 

dent's view in a strong light, while the great mass of feeble- 
ness and mediocrity is thrown into the shade or character- 
ized by a few decisive strokes of the great master's pencil. 
By using this work as a text-book, experience has shown 
that the student finds ample exercise for the faculties of 
attention and reflection ; that his taste becomes chastened and 
elevated ; and that he acquires a strong desire for investi 
gating the history of literature, and the conditions of success 
in all the fine arts. Inquiries, to which he was previously 
indifferent, acquire an interest for him. He reads and spec- 
ulates, not only with reference to Schlegel's opinions ; but 
also with reference to theories of his own, which he has 
been led to form ; and what is perhaps more important than 
all the rest, he is induced seriously to reflect on the duty 
which every scholar owes to the literature of Lis country. 
The questions, which have been prepared for examining 
students in this work, are those which were actually usee 
by the writer in giving instruction to several successive 
classes ; and they were found to be very beneficial in facil- 
itating the understanding of the text by the students, as well 
as economising the time of the teacher. They embrace the 
leading ideas of Schlegel ; but an infinity of other ques- 
tions might easily be raised with reference to the text, if 
time should be afforded for such an exercise during the 
hours of recitation. 

Philadelphia^ Feb 7, 1844 



CONTENTS. 



LECTURE I. 

PAGE 

Introduction and plan of the Work — Influence of Literatare on 
life and on the character of Nations — Poetry of the Greeks 
down to the age of Sophocles, 1 



LECTURE II. 

The later Literature of the Greeks — Their Sophists and Philo- 
sophers — The Alexandrian age 29 



LECTURE III. 

Retrospect — Influence of the Greeks on the Romans — Sketch of 
Roman Literature, 63 



LECTURE IV. 

Short duration of the Roman Literature — New epoch under 
Hadrian — Influence of the opinions of the Orientals on the 
Philosophy of the West — Mosaic writings, poetry of the Hp- 
brews — Religion of the Persians — Monuments of the Indians 
— Modes of interment among the ancient nations, . . 92 



LECTURE V. 

Literature, opinions, and intellectual habits of the Indians — Re- 
trospect to Europe, 117 



CONTENTS. 



LECTURE VI. 

PAGE 

Influence of Christianity on the Roman language and hterature 
— Transition to the Northern nations — Gothic heroic poems- • 
Odin, Runic writings and the Edda — Old German poetry 
The Nibelungen-lied, 138 



LECTURE VII. 

Of the Middle Age — Of the origin of the modern European 
languages — Poetry of the Middle Age — Love poetry — Char- 
acter of the Normans, and their influence on the Chivalrous 
poems — Particularly those v^hich treat of Charlemagne, . . 160 



LECTURE VIII. 

• 
Third set of Chivalrous poems—Arthur and the Round Table — 
Influence of the Crusades and the East on the Poetry of the 
West Arabic and Persian poems — Ferdusi — Last re-model- 
ling of the Nibelungen-lied — "Wolkram von Eschenbach, true 
purpose of the Gothic architecture — Later poesy of the Chival- 
rous period — Poem of the Cid, ...... 6i$ 



LECTURE IX. 

/talian Literature — Allegorizing spirit of the middle age — Rela- 
tion of Christianity to poetry — Dante, Petrarch, and Boc- 
caccio — Character of the Italian art of poetry in general — 
Modern Latin poets, and the evU consequences of their writ- 
ings — MachiavelU — Great inventions and discoveries of the 
fifteenth century, 203 



LECTURE X. 

A. few words upon the Literature of the North and East of 
Europe — Upon the scholastic learning and German mystics of 
the middle age, . . 2?h 



CONTENTS. 



LECTURE XL 



PAGE 



General remarks on the philosophy of the times immediately 
preceding and following the Reformation — Poetry of the 
CathoUc nations, the Spaniards, the Portuguese, and the 
Italians — Garcilaso, Ercilla, Camoens, Tasso, Guarini, Mari- 
no, and Cervantes, . . . . . 248 



LECTURE XIL 

Of Romance — Dramatic poetry of the Spaniards — Spenser 
Shakesoeare, and Milton — Age of Louis XIV. — The French 
theatre, . 270 



LECTURE Xin. 

•• 

Philosophy of the seventeenth century — Bacon, Hugo Grotius, 
Descartes, Bossuet, Pascal — Change in the mode of thinking 
— Spirit of the eighteenth century — Picture of the atheism 
and revolutionary spirit of the French, 299 



LECTURE XIV. 

Lighter species of writing in France, and imitation of the Eng- 
lish — Fashionable literature of both countries — Modern Ro- 
mance — The prose of Buffon and Rousseau — Popular poetry 
in England — Modern Italian theatre — Criticism and historical 
composition' of the EngUsh — Sceptical philosophy — Return to 
a better and higher species of philosophy in France — Bonald 
and St. Martin — Sir William Jones and Burke, 



LECTURE XV. 

Retrospect — German philosophy — Spinosa and Leibnitz — Ger- 
man language and poetry in the sixteenth and seventeenth 
centuries — Luther, Hans Sachs, Jacob Bohme — Opitz, the 
Silesian school — Corruption of taste after the peace of West- 



Jtll CONTENTS. 

PAGE 
phalia; occasional poetry — German poets of the first half of 
the eighteenth century — Frederick the Second; Klopstock; 
the Messiad and Northern mythology — The chivalrous poems 
of Wieland — Introduction of the ancient metres of quantity 
into the German language; defence of rh3nne — Adelung, 
Gottsched, and "the (so called) golden age" — First genera- 
tion of the later German literature, or "the period of the 
founders," 342 



LECTURE XVI. 

(general review — Second Generation — German criticism — Les- 
sing and Herder — Lessing as a philosopher — Freethinking 
and the illuminati — The Emperor Joseph the Second — Char- 
acter of the third generation —The philosophy of Kant — 
Goethe and Schiller — Anticipation — Fichte and Tieck — True 
character of German literature — Conclusion, .... 363 



LECTURES 



HISTORY OF LITERATURE. 



. LECTURE 1. 

INTRODUCTION AND PLAN OF THE WORK INFLUENCE OF LITERATURE 

ON LIFE AND ON THE CHARACTER OF NATIONS POETRY OF THE 

GREEKS DOWN TO THE AGE OF SOPHOCLES. 

In the following discourses, it is my design to give a 
general view of the development and of the spirit of lite- 
rature among the most illustrious nations of ancient as 
well as of modern times ; but my principal object is to 
represent literature as it has exerted its influence on the 
affairs of active life, on the fate of nations, and on the pro- 
gressive character of ages. 

During the last hundred years, the human mind, more 
particularly in Germany, has undergone a great, and, in 
one point of view at least, a fortunate alteration. Not that 
the individual productions of art, or inquiries into science, 
to which this period has given birth, are entitled to indis- 
criminate praise, or have attained equal success; but a 
miglity change has taken place in the quarter where it 
was most necessary, in the regard and interest which the 
world at large bestows on literature ; and among us, above 
all other people, in the influence which it has already 
exerted, and is likely in a much greater degree to exert 
on us, both as individuals and as a nation. 

Our men of letters formed, till of late, a body altogether 
iiit off from the rest of the world, and quite as distinct from 

1 



2 LITERATURE OF GERMANY. 

the society of the higher orders as these were from tho 
mass of the people. Keppler and Leibnitz composed far 
the greater part of their works in Latin; and Frederick 
of Prussia, in his turn, both of thinking and of writing, 
was a Frenchman. All national recollections, and alj 
national feelings, were - either abandoned to the common 
people, who still maintained among them some remnant, 
however feeble and mutilated, of the spirit of " the good 
old time ;" or formed in secret the inspiration and the en- 
thusiastic pursuit of a few poets and authors, who at first, 
indeed, applied themselves to these objects in the hope of 
bringing about a new state of things by their means. So 
long however, as this was alone attempted by some particu- 
lar classes of society, there could be little chance that the 
youthful enthusiasm of their design should be justified by 
success, or crowned by consequences of universal utility. 

During the whole of the latter part of the seventeenth. 
and the first half of the eighteenth century, this complete 
separation between the men of letters and -the people oJ 
fashion, and between them and the rest of the nation, was 
universal throughout Germany; and, indeed, these unna- 
tural distinctions and their necessary consequences pro- 
tracted no inconsiderable influence in particular quartei., 
long after the general mind had become sufficiently pre- 
pared for the reception of a new state of things, and a 
more rational arrangement of society. 

The great number of distinguished works, or at least 
of remarkable and praiseworthy attempts, w^hich, especi- 
ally after the middle of the eighteenth century, were per- 
petually making their appearance in the German tongue, 
succeeded, at length, in attracting universal attention, part- 
ly to the too much neglected history of our country, and 
to the many beautiful traits of magnanimity and virtue 
which are related in our ancient chronicles; partly to the 
innate excellencies of our lano-uag-e itself, — the strenoth, 
the richness, and the flexibility which it never fails to 
display, when it is employed in a manner adapted to its 
character. The more that national feelings and recollec- 
tions were revived, the more also was our love awakened 
for our mo .her tongue. That acquaintance with foreign 
languages, whether dead or living, ^vhich is necessary for 



ADVANTAGES OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES. 6 

men of letters and men of fashion, was no longer connected 
with neglect of their vernacular speech: a neglect whjch is 
always sure to work its own revenge on those who practise 
it, and which can never be supposed to create any prejudice 
either in favour of their politeness or their erudition. The 
great attention with which foreign languages had been stu- 
died, was, however, at this period, of infinite advantage to 
our o^^^l ; for eYerj foreign language, even a living one, 
must of necessity be acquired in a more exact mamier than 
our vernacular tongue. Thus the mind becomes sharpened 
(or the perception of the general principles of language; 
and in the end we apply to the polishing and enriching of 
our o^A^l language that acuteness which we have been ac- 
customed to exercise on others. It has become, in a word, 
the great object of general ambition to add to the strength 
and the variety, which are the distinguishing excellencies of 
our native tongue, all those other advantages which charac- 
terize the most cultivated languages of ancient as weil as of 
modern times. 

It is, however, my purpose to exhibit a picture, not of 
German literature alone, but of the literature of the Euro- 
pean nations in general. There cannot, therefore, be any 
impropriety in anticipating the remark, that during the 
eighteenth century, the literature of many other countries 
underwent a change similar to that which took place in our 
o\A^i, and manifested the same disposition to resume those 
national characteristics, and that national spirit, which it 
had been the ambition of the preceding period, as much as 
possible, to obliterate. The example of England will suf- 
ficiently illustrate my meaning. Even there, during the 
latter part of the seventeenth century, while the country lay 
exhausted and drooping under the consequences of the civil 
wars of Cromwell, the public taste became corrupted, insip- 
id, tame, sickly, and un-English. The language itself was 
neglected, and the great old poets and authors were sinking 
fast into oblivion. But so soon as, by a fortunate revolution, 
the political independence of England came again to be 
displayed, her national literature also began to revive. The 
French taste, which the English had adopted, became every 
day Aveaker ; and they recurred at last, with redoubled af- 
fection, to the eld poets of their country. It became an ob 



4 REVIVAL OF LITERATURE IN EUROPE. 

ject of much study to preserve their language in all its 
strength and integrity; a number of great writers arose; 
and since that time, so strong and so unchanging have been 
their care and partiality for every monument, and every 
relic, however minute, of British history and British anti- 
quities, that, so far as this matter is concerned, we can re- 
proach their national character with only the one glorious 
fault of a too exclusive admiration of their country. 

A separation, such as I have mentioned, between the men 
of letters and the courtly society, and again between both of 
these and the common people, is destructive of all national 
character. It is necessary that the different natural circum- 
stances and situations of the various classes of mankind, 
should, in a certain degree, work together, before we cap 
either attain or enjoy excellence in the productions of mind. 
Where was there ever any work entitled to be called truly 
perfect, in the formation of w^hich the strength and enthu- 
siasm of youth have not laboured in companionship with the 
experience and maturity of manhood ? Even the tenderness 
of womanly feeling must not be excluded from exerting its 
due influence on the works of literature ; because when the 
character of a nation is once truly formed, that noble sense 
of delicacy which is peculiar to the sex, may do much to- 
wards maintaining it in its purity, and preventing it from 
overstepping the limits of the beautiful. There are only 
two common principles on which every work of imagina- 
tion must more or less proceed, — :first^ On the expression of 
those feelings which are common to all men of elevated 
thinking ; and, secondly, On those patriotic feelings and as- 
sociations peculiar to the people in whose language it is 
composed, and on whom it is to exert its nearest and mos* 
powerful influence. 

That the formation of a national character requires a 
combination of all those powers and faculties, which we 
but too often keep distinct and isolated, is a truth which, 
has at least begun to be felt. The learning of the philoso- 
pher — ^the acuteness and promptitude of the man of business 
— the eai'nestness and enthusiasm of the solitary artist — that 
lightness and flexibility of mental impression, and every 
fleeting delicacy which we can only find, and learn to find, 
in the intercourse of society, — all these are now brought 



for:>ia.tion of national character. 5 

somewhat into contact with each other, or, at least, do not 
stand aloof in such total separation as of old. 

But however much literature has of late gained in most 
countries, by becoming more national, more spirited, and 
more connected with the affairs of life, the evil of which I 
have complained is yet far from being altogether removed. 
In Germany we may still, on many occasions, see literature 
and active life stand separated like two different ^vorlds, 
having no influence on each other. If all the individual 
varieties of mental exertion, and mental production (which 
we class under the common name of literature.) be not in 
a great measure lost to the world ; at least they are far, very 
far, from exerting their due influence on us, either as indi- 
viduals or as a nation. Let us only contemplate for a mo- 
ment the actual state of literature, but particularly those 
causes which are most powerful in their influence on litera- 
ture itself^ and on the estimation in which it is generally 
held. 

It seems to be considered as a common right to all poets 
and artists, to live only in the Avorld of their own thoughts, 
and to be quite unfitted for the w^orld which other men in- 
habit Concerning the man of erudition, it is a maxim in 
every mouth, that he is a being of no practical utility. 
Every one mistrusts the skill of the orator, and imagines 
that he has the power to bend the truth to his own purposes, 
with the design of deceiving and misleading us. That phi- 
losophy is often more apt to lead an age wrong, and betray 
It into the most unfortunate errors, than really to enlighten 
and maintain it in the truth, is sufficiently manifest from our 
owm experience and the history of the present age. Through 
the reciprocal animosities and complaints of philosophers 
themselves, it has become commonly known, even among 
the uninitiated, how seldom they are in good understanding 
with each other; and from this circumstance the opinion 
has gone abroad, that, in general, philosophical tenets exert 
no practical influence on those who maintain them, and that 
philosophers, like other men, more frequently accommodate 
their opinions to their desires, than their desires to their 
opmions. Yet nothing can be more irrational than to en- 
dfg.vour to bring into discredit the noblest struggle which ii 
b ^ tlie power of man to make, — the struggle after know- 

1* 



PECULIARITIES OF LITERARY MEN. 

ledge in the investigation of truth, merely on account of the 
general difficulty of the undertaking, and the ill success or 
ill conduct of particular inquirers. There is indeed no oc- 
casion to wonder, that men, perpetually occupied with the 
weighty affairs of political and of active life, should consid- 
er the petty disputes of writers as a mere spectacle of amuse- 
ment, neither very interesting nor very important. Even 
the countless number of books must produce, in the greater 
proportion of readers, such a feeling of satiety, that nothing 
can appear more completely trifling, superfluous, and un- 
profitable, than a new book, adding one more to the heap of 
authors whom they have already in their hands. In this 
sketch, however, I have omitted to notice, that in my opin- 
ion, writers of all sorts, poets, learned men, and artists, are 
themselves the cause of a great share of that contempt of lit- 
erature which is so prevalent throughout the world ; for this 
reason, that they very seldom speak their mind freely and 
decidedly on the subject. But even if all the reproaches 
which are commonly cast on authors and their works were, 
on the whole, just and well-founded, will any one deny that 
there are at least glorious exceptions to the rule, — ^works 
both of learning and of genius, which, in relation to the 
world in general, to their country, and to the age, fulfil 
every wish that could be formed, and are in all respects ab- 
solute and perfect 7 And if this be so, why are men so slow 
to recognize the absurdity of this general neglect, which has 
no better logic to support it than that which throws the 
blame of partial and temporary abuses of literature, on the 
essence of literature itself, a thing every way so great and 
so important ? Or why do they persist in keeping literary 
men in a state of separation from the world at large, — a sit- 
uation from which so many of their errors and defects are, 
in all probability, derived ? 

But in order to discover with perfect clearnesss and pre- 
cision the importance of literature, both in its original desti- 
lination, and in the power which it certainly exerts on the 
worth and welfare of nations, let us for a moment consider 
:t under both of these aspects. And, in the first place, let 
us regard the true nature and object, the wide extent, and 
original dignity of literature. Under this name, then, 1 
comprehend all those arts and sciences, and all those mental 



IMPORTANCE OF LANGUAGE. 7 

exertions which have human hfe, and man himself, for their 
object ; but which, manifesting themselves in no external ef- 
fect, energize only in thought and speech, and without re- 
quiring any corporeal matter on which to operate, display 
intellect as embodied in written language. Under this are 
included, — first, the art of poetry, and the kindred art of 
narration, or history: next, all those higher exertions of 
pure reason and intellect which have human life, and man 
himself, for their object, and which have influence upon 
both; and, last of all, eloquence and, wit, whenever these do 
not escape in the fleeting vehicle of oral communication, but 
remain displayed in the more substantial and lasting form 
of written productions. And when I have emimrrated 
these, I imagine I have comprehended almost every thing 
which can enter into the composition of the intellectual life 
of man. With the single exception of reason — and even 
reason can scarcely operate without the intervention of Ian 
guage — is there any thing more important to man, more 
peculiar to him, or more inseparable from his nature, than 
speech? Nature, indeed, could not have bestowed on us a 
gift more precious than the human voice, which, possessing 
sounds for the expression of every feeling, and being capa- 
ble of distinctions as minute, and combinations as intricate, 
as the most complex instrument of music, is thus enabled to 
furnish materials so admirable for the formation of artificial 
language. The greatest and most important discovery of 
.human ingenuity is writing ; there is no impiety in saying, 
that it was scarcely in the pov/er of the Deity to confer on 
man a more glorious present than Language, by the me- 
dium of which he himself has been revealed to us, and 
which affords at once the strongest bond of union, and the 
best instrument of communication. So inseparable, indeed, 
are mind and language, so identically one are thought and 
speech, that although we must always hold reason to be the 
great characteristic and peculiar attribute of man, yet lan- 
guage also, when we regard its original object and intrinsic 
dignity, is Avell entitled to be considered as a component part 
of the intellectual structure of our being. And although. 
in strict application and rigid expression, thought and speech 
always are, and always must be regarded as two things me- 
taphyf^'cally disthict, — yet there only can we find these two 



8 INFLITENCE OF LANGUAGE 

elements in disunion, where one or both have been employ 
ed imperfectly or amiss. Nay, such is the effect of the ori- 
ginal union or identity^ that, in their most extensive varieties 
of application, they can never be totally disunited, but must 
always remain inseparable, and every where be exerted in 
combination. 

However greatly both of these high gifts, which are so 
essentially the same, — ^these, the proudest distinctions o. 
human nature, which have made man what he is, — may be 
in many instances misdirected and abused ; still our innate 
and indestructable sense of the original dignity of speech 
and language, is sufficiently manifest, from the importance 
which we attach to them, in the formation of all our par- 
ticular judgments and opinions. What influence the art of 
speaking has upon our judgment in the affairs of active life, 
and in all the relations of society, — what power the force 
of expression every Avhere exerts over our thoughts, it would 
be superfluous to detail. The same considerations which 
govern us in our judgment of individuals, determine us also 
in our opinions concerning nations ; and we are at once dis- 
posed to look upon that people as the most enlightened and 
the most polished, which makes use of the most clear, pre- 
cise, appropriate, and agreeable medium of expression : in- 
somuch, that we not unfrequently allow ourselves to be bias- 
sed even to weakness by the external advantage of diction 
and utterance, and pay more attention to the vehicle than to 
the instrinsic value of the thoughts themselves, or the moral 
character of those from whom they proceed. Nor do we 
form our opinions in this manner concerning those individ- 
uals alone, and those people who reside in our vicinity, or 
with whom we are personally acquainted ; but we apply 
the same standard to those who are removed to the greatest 
distance from us, both in time and situation. Let us take, 
for instance, the example of a people which we have al- 
ways been accustomed to class under the general epithet of 
barbarian. So soon as some observing traveller makes him- 
self acquainted with their language, this unfavourable 
Dpinion begins essentially to be changed. " Barbarians !" 
ne will say, "they are indeed barbarians, for they are un- 
acquainted with our arts and our refinements, as well as 
with those moral evils which are so often their consequen- 



PECULIARITIES OF LANGUAGE. 9 

ces ; but it is at least impossible to deny that they possess a 
sound and strong understanding, and a natural acuteness, 
which we cannot observe withwat admiration. Their bnejf 
replies are most touching, and not unfrequently display a 
native vein of wit. Their language is powerful and ex- 
pressive, and possesses the most marked clearness and 
precision." Thus, in all situations, and in all affairs, we 
are accustomed and compelled to reason from language to 
intellect, and from the expression to the thought. But these 
are only solitary examples in solitary cases. 

The true excellence and importance of those arts and 
sciences which exert and display themselves in writing, may 
be seen, in a more general point of view, in the great in- 
fluence which they have exerted on the character and fate 
of nations, throughout the history of the world. Here it is 
that literature appears in all its reach and comprehension, 
as the epitome of all the intellectual capabilities and pro- 
gressive improvements of mankind. If we look back to 
the history of our species, and observe what circumstances 
have given to any one nation the greatest advantages over 
others, w^e shall not, I think, hesitate to admit, that there is 
nothing so necessary to the whole improvement, or rather 
to the whole intellectual existence of a nation, as the pos- 
session of a plentiful store of those national recollections 
and associations, which are lost in a great measure during 
the dark ages of infant society, but which it forms the great 
object of the poetical art to perpetuate and adorn. Such 
national recollections, the noblest inheritance which a peo- 
ple can possess, bestow an advantage which no other riches 
can supply ; for when a people are exalted in their feelings 
and enobled in their o^^ti estimation, by the consciousness 
that they have been illustrious in ages that are gone by, — 
that these recollections have come do-\Mi to them from a re- 
mote and a heroic ancestry, — m a word, that they have a 
national jpoetry of their own, we are willing to acknowledge 
that their pride is reasonable, and they are raised in our 
eyes by the same circumstances which gives them elevation 
in their own. It is not from the extent of its undertakings 
alone, or from the remarkable nature of the incidents of its 
history, that we judge of the character and importance of a 
nation. Many a nation, which has undergone in its time 



10 NA.TIONAL HISTORY. 

all the varieties of human fortune, has sunk nameless into 
oblivion, and left behind scarcely a trace of its existence. 
Others, more fortunate, have transmitted to posterity the 
memory of their influence, and the fame of their conquests ] 
and yet we scarcely hold the narrative to be worthy of our 
attention, unless the spirit of the nation has been such as to 
communicate its interests to those undertakings and those 
incidents which at best occupy but too great a space in the 
history of the world. Remarkable actions, great events, 
and strange catastrophies, are not of themselves sufficient to 
preserve the admiration and determine the judgement of 
posterity. These are only to be attained by a nation who . 
have given clear proofs that they were not insensible instru- 
ments in the hands of destiny, but were themselves conscious 
of the greatness of their deeds and the singularity of their 
fortunes. This national consciousness, expressing itself in 
works of narrative and illustration, is History. A people 
whose days of glory and victory have been celebrated by 
the pen of a Livy, whose misfortunes and decline have 
been bequeathed to posterity in the pages of a Tacitus, ac- 
quires a strange pre-eminence by the genius of her historians, 
and is no longer in any danger of being classed with the 
vulgar multitude of nations, which, occupying no place in 
the history of human intellect, as soon as they have per- 
formed their part of conquest or defeat on the stage of the 
world, pass away from our view, and sink forever into ob- 
livion. The poet, the painter, or the sculptor, though en- 
dued with all the power and all the magic of his art, — 
though capable of reaching or embodying the boldest flights 
of imagination ; — the philosopher, though he may be able 
to scrutinize the most hidden depth of human thought, (rare 
as these attainments may be, and few equals as he may find 
in the society with which he is surrounded,) can, during the 
period of his own life, be known and appreciated only by a 
few. But the sphere of his influence extends with the pro- 
gress of ages, and his name shines brighter and broader as 
it grows old. Compared with his, the fame of the legisla- 
tor, among distant nations, and the celebrity of new insti- 
tutions, appears uncertain and obscure ; while the glory of 
the conqueror, after a few centuries have sunk into the all- 
whelming all-destroying abyss of time, is for ever fading 



IMrORTANCE OF HISTORY. 1 1 

ill its lustre, until at length it perhaps affords a subject of 
exultation to some plodding antiquarian, that he should be 
able to discover some glimmerings of a name which had 
once challenged the reverence of the world. It may safely 
be affirmed, that not only among the moderns, but even in 
the latter ages of antiquity, the preservation and extension 
of the fame of Greece were at least as much the work of 
Homer and Plato, as of Solen and Alexander. The trib- 
ute of attention which all the European nations so willing- 
ly pay to the history of the Greeks, as the authors and ex- 
amples of European refinement, is in truth more rightly 
due to the philosopher and the poet, than to the conqueror 
and the legislator. The influence which the works and 
the genius of Homer have of themselves produced on after 
ages, or rather, indeed, on the general character and im- 
provement of the hiiman race, has alone been far more dur- 
able, and far more extensive, than the combined effects of 
all the institutions of the Athenian, and all the heroic deeds 
and transcendent victories of the Macedonian. In truth, if 
Solon and Alexander still continue to be glorious and im- 
mortal names, their glory and immortality are to be traced 
rather to the influence which, by certain accidents, their 
genius has exerted on the intellectual character and pro- 
gress of the species, than to the instrinsic value of s system 
of municipal laws altogether discrepant from our own, or 
to the establishment of a few dynasties which have long 
since passed away. 

We must not, indeed, expect to find many poets or many 
philosophers whose genius or whose celebrity have in any 
degree entitled them to be compared with Homer and Plato. 
But wherever one is to be found, he, like them, is deserved- 
ly valued by posterity as a solitary light in the midst ol 
darkness, a sure index and a common standard, by which 
we may form an estimate of the intellectual power and re- 
finement of the age and nation which gave him biith. 

If to these high advantages of national poetry and na- 
tional traditions, of a history abounding in subjects of me- 
ditation, of refined art, and profound science, we add the 
gifts of eloquence, of wit, and of a language of society 
adapted to all the ends of elegant intercourse, but not abused 
to the purpose of immorality : we have filled up the pic- 



12 THE GENIUS OF HOMER. 

ture of a polished and Intel lectua] people, and we liave a 
full view of what a perfect and comprehensive literature 
ought to be. 

Animated as I am by the wish to present literature in all 
its importance, and in all the influence which it exerts on 
the affairs of mankind, I am far from being insensible to 
the difficulties of the task which I have undertaken. I am 
well aware that, on one hand, from my desire to be brief 
and comprehensive, I may be in danger of passing over 
many things in a cursory, and perhaps an incidental man- 
ner, which might well deserve the fullest explanation and 
detail ; while, on the other hand, from my anxiety to estab- 
lish the justice of my opinions, by a reference to historical 
facts, I may be apt to dwell on particular points to a length 
which, by those who have not made literature the great 
business of their lives, may be esteemed useless and un- 
profitable. I am however encouraged to proceed in my at- 
tempt, by the long intimacy in which I have lived with 
many departments of literature. The ground, indeed, is so 
rich and so extensive, that no one who is at all acquainted 
with its nature can be in much danger of believing himself 
to have exhausted it. But my familiarity with a subject 
which has occupied almost the whole of my life, may per- 
haps be no inadequate preparation for giving a comprehen- 
sive sketch of literature as a whole. It should at least ena- 
ble me to distinguish, with some precision, between what is 
useful only as a step to something farther, and what posses- 
ses in itself the importance of an end ; as well as between 
those results whose value can be estimated only by the 
learned, and those which possess qualities calculated to ren- 
der them interesting in the eyes of the world at large. 

The whole of our mental refinement is in so great a de- 
gree derived from that of the ancients, that it would be ex- 
tremely difficult to treat of literature in any way, without 
bestowing at least a few introductory observations on the 
writers of Greece and Rome. It would, above all things, 
be imposs ble to draw a picture of the progress of literature 
in generalj or to form any estimate of the relative merits of 
the works which have appeared in our o^vn time, without 
having previously described, in some sort, the peculiar ex- 
cellencies of the great masterpiece of antiquity, The his- 



WRITERS OF GREECE AND ROME. 13 

lory of Greece, beyond that of any other country affords 
the most striking illustration of the strength and beauty to 
which literature may attain, when its progress is fostered by 
the public care of an ingenious and lively people ; and, in 
a different period of the same eventful story, the poisonous 
influence and destructive consequences of a sophistical elo 
quence, are displayed with a power and a clearness for 
ivhich we sliould elsewhere seek in vain. 

The view which I propose to take of antiquity shall, 
however, be short and compressed, however much I might 
be tempted to extend my account of the literature of nations, 
to whom we are indebted for so large a share of our men- 
tal cultivation, and from whom Ave have derived so rich a 
legacy of models, in every "department both of letters and 
of art. In the same brief manner I shall notice what the 
literature of Europe- has derived from the oriental nations, 
whether in the more remote ages of antiquity, or during 
the flourishing period of Greece and Rome, or in conse- 
quence of the intimate connections which have subsisted 
between Europe and Asia in modern times. It is true that, 
were I to write in a manner strictly chronological, the an- 
cient monuments of Asiatic and Egyptian g^enius would 
come to be considered before those of the Greeks. But as 
it is my principal object to give a historical view of our 
European refinement, and to represent literature as inflil- 
encmg the affairs of active life, I apprehend I shall act 
more suitably to my design, if I postpone my account ot 
those matters in which we have been indebted to the genius 
of the East, till I come to treat of that period in our history, 
when these first began to have a considerable share in the 
formation of the intellectual character of the Europeans. I 
shall then with particular attention review the antiquities of 
our northern ancestors, and the mythology of the Goths, 
together with the poetry and fiction of chivalry which are 
derived from these sources. The influence of the Crusades, 
and the effects of the intercourse which at that period took 
place between the Franks and the Saracenic nations, will 
come next to be considered. In the remaining lectures, I 
shall describe the period which has elapsed since the revi- 
val of letters, and conclude with a full and particular re- 
view of the literature of the eighteenth century 

2 



14 PLAN or THE WORK 

In the rneantime, should I be so fortunate, vrhile I am 
occupied A^'ith the history of ancient literature, as to shew 
some things which are well kno^vn, and have been often 
treated by preceeding writers, in a new light and a neAv con- 
nection — I hope I shall have the greater chance of meet- 
ing with a patient hearing, when, in the progress of my la- 
bours, I shall sometimes venture to try the productions of 
latter ages, and more particularly those of our own times, 
by the test of principles which are, in my opinion, well en- 
titled to respect and admiration, although they may not im- 
frequently appear to be totally in opposition to the acknow- 
ledged canons of ancient criticism. 



In addition to the reasons which I have already assigned 
for beginning my account of literature in general, with a 
description of that of the Greeks, I may notice, that they are 
the only people who can be said to have, in almost every 
respect, created their o\^ti literature ; and the excellence ol 
whose attainments stand almost entirely unconnected w^ith 
the previous cultivation of any other nations. This is what 
Ave can by no means assert either of the Roman literature, 
or of that of the modern nations of Europe. It is indeed 
true, according to their own testimony, that the Greeks de 
rived their alphabet from the Phoenicians; and the first 
principles of architecture and mathematical sciences, as well 
as many detached ideas of their philosophers, and many of 
tke useful arts of life, from the Eg}"ptians of the early in- 
habitants of Asia. Their oldest traditions and poems, 
moreover, have many points of resemblance to the most an- 
cient remains of the Asiatic nations. But all this amounts 
to nothing more than a few" scattered hints or mutilated re- 
collections ; and may, indeed, be all referred to the common 
origin of mankind, and the necessary influence of that dis- 
trict of the world, in which the mental improvement of our 
species was first considered as an object of general concern. 
Whatever the Greeks learned or borrowed from others, by 
the skill with which they improved, and the purposes to 
which they applied it, became thenceforth akogether their 
swn. If they were indebted to those who had gone before 



LITERATURE OE THE GREEKS. 15 

diem for solitary ideas and unconnected hints, the great 
whole of their intellectual refinement was unquestionably 
the work of their own genius. The Romans, on the con 
trary, and the modern Europeans, set out with the -possession 
of a complete body of literature, and examples of high cul- 
tivation, derived from nations more ancient than themselves; 
the Romans receiving this rich legacy from the Greeks ; 
and the modern Europeans being the common heirs of both 
of these peoples, as well as of much of the learning and 
refinement of the Orientals, — possessions which, till within 
the two last cer.turies, they can scarcely be said either to 
have appropriated to their own uses, or rendered more valua- 
ble by the addition of their own ingenuity. 

There, are three great incidents which divide the whole 
of the truly illustrious period of the Greek history into as 
many different parts, and which also form three epochs in 
the history of the mental improvement of our species, — the 
Persian war, in the first place, when the Greeks contended 
for the maintenance of their political freedom and* indepen- 
dence, with united strength and success so glorious, against 
the overwhelming power of Asia ; — the Peloponnesian war, 
in the second place, a civil war between Athens on the one 
hand, and the Doric states on the other, which raged 
throughout the whole of their country for the space of 
twenty-seven years; in the course of which the arms of 
kindred tribes were turned against each other, and the poli- 
tical power of Greece was destroyed by the valour of her 
own children; — and last of all, the expedition of Alexander, 
by means of which the spirit and the empire of Greece 
were extended over a great part of Asia, like the scattering 
of a mingled seed, destined to give birth in after ages to a 
rich harvest both of evil and of good. A new Graeco-Asi- 
atic taste and turn of thinking were produced at this period 
which formed a bond of connection more close than had 
ever before united Europe and Asia; whose influence, in- 
deed, has never ceased, and which at this moment exerts no 
inconsiderable power over those who are scarcely aware of 
its existence. 

Elad the Greeks been unsuccessflil in the war which they 
waged in defence of their liberty against the Persians, and 
had t^eir country become at last a province of the great 



IG POLISHED LEARNING OF THE GREEKS. 

empire of Xerxes, their place in the history of the human 
mini must have been widely different from that which they 
at present hold. They must have remained stationary 
where the Persians found them: or, it is probable, they 
might have declined from the eminence to which they had 
already attained. It is true, that, to a certain degree, they 
must always have remained an mtellectual. and even a re- 
fined people. Like other cultivated nations which fell un- 
der the power of Persia, — ^the Eg)^tians, for instance, the 
Jews, or the Phcenicians. — they would have retained their 
language and their authors, and in part, it may be, their 
customs and their laws ; for the government of Persia was, 
upon the whole, singularly mild, and by far the noblest and 
the best of all the universal empires which the world has 
ever seen. But the spirit of man never reaches, without 
freedom, that high tone to which it attained during the glo- 
rious strugsrle of the Greeks. 

The whole happy period of the political history of Greece, 
as well as all the glories of her literature, occupy no greater 
space than the three hundred years which intervened between 
Solon and Alexander. 

With Solon commences a new epoch even in the litera- 
ture of Greece. Not only does the perfecting of lyric and 
the beginning of dramatic poetry fall within this period : it 
also gave birth to a crowd of didactic poets, who enlighten- 
ed the opening curiosity of the public mind, and displayed, 
in all the beauty of verse, the fitness of moral laws, and the 
physical structure of the universe. It was then, too, that 
Herodotus carried at once to perfection the art of writing in 
prose. The freedom of spirit Avhich Solon introduced and 
rendered durable, and the liberal education which the whole 
system of his laws rendered indispensably necessary to the 
noble and weakhy citizms of Athens, soon rendered the 
?tate which had been enlightened by his legislation, a cen- 
tral point of illumination to all the republics of Greece. 

This happy period ended with Alexander the Great. 
Demosthenes was born only one year later than the too suc- 
cessful conqueror who waged the last war against the inde- 
pendence of his country, and he was the last great writer 
whose works were addressed to the Greeks as a nation 
The Greeks continued, indeed, long afterwards, to be a pol- 



THE HOMERIC POEjIS. 17 

ished and a literary people. In Egypt, under the Prole- 
mies, they became a more learned and a more philosophical 
people than they had ever been in the days of their ancient 
glory at home ; but they were no longer a nation, .and with 
their freedom, their whole strength of feeling, and the pe- 
culiar tone of their spirit, was for ever lost. 

Within so short a space, then, lies all that vast and mani- 
fold creation of productions, which, even to this hour, ren- 
der Greece the object of universal wonder and reveren-ce ; 
a great spectacle, and well-deserving of thought ; a period 
fruitful beyond measure, both of evil and of good, and there- 
by doubly instructive. The whole history of the world 
can shew but one more such spectacle of the real develop- 
ment of awakened intellect ; but that we shall have full 
leisure to consider in the sequel. 

With Solon the proper epoch of Grecian literature begins. 
Before his time the Greeks possessed no more than com- 
monly falls to the share of every people who are blessed 
with a favorable corporeal organization, while they are ani- 
mated with the fresh impulse of a youthful socieK' — tradi- 
tions, which hold the place of histories, and songs and 
poems, which are repeated and remembered so as to serve 
instead of books. Such songs calculated to arouse national 
feelings, and to give animation in the hour of battle, — or to 
be smig at the festivals of their religion. — or to perpetuate 
the joys of a successful, or the rasfe and hatred of a slighted 
lover, — or the tears which the poet has consecrated to the 
mem.ory of his departed mistress — all these were possessed 
by the Greeks, in the utmost variety, from the most early 
period of their existence as a nation. Still more valuable 
are those sonsfs of narrative, which express, not the feelings 
that seize and overpower an individual poet, but embodv 
the recollection and the feelings of the people. — the famt 
memory of an almost fabulous antiquity. — the achievements 
of heroes and of gods. — the origin of a nation, — and the 
creation of the world. But even these are to be found in 
abundance among other nations, as well as among the 
Greeks. There is only one production, the high pre-emi- 
nence of which, gives to the early ages of the Greeks 
a decided superiority over those of every other people. — ^the 
Homeric poems, the still astonishing works of the Iliad and 

2* 



18 



THEIR REVIVAL. 



the Odyssey. These, indeed, are the work of a preceeding 
age; but it is sufficiently evident, from the language, the 
contents, and, above all, from the spirit of these poems, that 
they were designed and composed Avithin a short time (prob- 
ably within a century) of the age of Solon. In his time, 
at all events, and partly by means of his personal exertions, 
they were first rescued from the precariousness and forget- 
fulness of oral recitation, arranged in the order in which we 
see them, and rendered, as they have ever since continued 
to be, the objects of universal attention and regard. 

Solon and his successors in the government of Athens, 
Peisistratus and the Peisistratidas, over and above the de- 
light which they must have derived from the compositions 
themselves, were probably influenced by views of a nature 
purely political, to interest themselves in the preservation of 
the Homeric poems. About this period, that is, six hun- 
dred years before Christ, the independence of the Greeks of 
Asia Minor was much threatened, not indeed as yet by the 
power of Persia, but by that of the Lydian monarchs, 
w^hose kingdom was soon after swallowed up in the im- 
mense empire of Cyrus. As soon, however, as that con- 
queror had overcome Croesus, and extended his power over 
the Lesser Asia, no clear-sighted patriot could any longer 
conceal from himself the great danger which was impen- 
dent over Greece. The greater part of the Grecian states, 
indeed, seem to have remained long in their security, with- 
out forseeing the storm which was so near them, and which 
burst with such fury on their continent, during the reigns 
of Darius and of Xerxes. But the danger must have been 
soon and thoroughly perceived by Athens, linked as she 
was in the closest intimacy with the Asiatic Greeks, not 
only by all the ties of a flourishing commerce, but also by 
the common origin of their Ionic race. The revival of 
these old songs, which relate how Grecian heroes warred 
with united strength against Asia, and laid seige to the me- 
tropolis of Priam, occured, at least, at a very favourable 
period, to nourish in the Greeks the pride of heroic feel- 
ings, and excite them to like deeds in the cause of their in- 
dependence. 

Whether any such event as the Trojan war ever in real- 
ity took place, we have no positive means of deciding 



GiiAV'ES or ACHILLES AND PATROCLUS. 19 

The dynasty of Agamemnon and the Atreidse, however, falls 
ahnosts within the limits of history. Neither is it at all un- 
likely that much intercourse subsisted at a very early pe- 
riod, between the Greek peninsular and Asia Minor : for 
the inhabitants of the two countries were kindred peoples, 
speaking nearly the same language, and Pelops, from whom 
the peninsula itself derived its name, was a native of Asia. 
That the carrying away of a single princess should have 
been the cause of a universal and long protracted war, is. 
at least, abundantly consistent with the spirit of the heroic 
times, and forcibly recals to our recollection a parallel pe- 
riod in the history of Christendom, and the chivalry of the 
middle ages. However much of fable and alleg-ory may 
have been weaved into the story of Helen and Troy, that 
many great recollections of the remote ages were in some 
manner connected with the local situation of Troy itself, is 
manifest from the graves of heroes. — the earthen tumuli 
which are still visible on that part of the coast. That these 
old Greek mounds or monuments, which were, according 
to universal tradition, pointed out as the graves of Achilles 
and Patroclus, — over one of which Alexander wept, envying 
the fate of the hero who had found a Homer to celebrate 
him, — that the^e were in existence in the time of the poet 
nimself, is, I think, apparent from many passages of the 
Iliad. It was reserved for the impious, or at least the fool- 
ish, curiosity of our own age, to ransack these tombs, and 
violate the sacred repose of the ashes and arms of heroes, 
which were found still to exist within their recesses. But 
all these are matters of no importance to the subject of 
which I am at present treating ; for although the Trojan 
war had been altogether the creation of the poets fancy, 
that circumstance could have had little influence, either on 
the object which Solon Peisistratus had in view, or on the 
spirit of patriotism which was excited by the revival of the 
Homeric poems. The story was, at all events, universally 
believed, and listened to as an incident of true and authentic 
history. 

To the Greeks, accordingly, of every age, these poems 
possessed a near and a national interest of the most lively 
and touching character, while to us their principal attrac- 
tion consist in the more universal charm of beautiful nar- 



20 ACHILLES AND ULYSSES. 

ration, and in the lofty representations which they unfold of 
the heroic life. For here there prevails not any peculiar 
mode of thinking, or S3^stem of prejudices, adapted to live 
only within a limited period, or exclusively to celebrate the 
fame and pre-eminence of some particular race, — defects 
w^hich are so apparent, both in the old songs of the Ara- 
bians, and in the poems of Ossian. There breathes through- 
out these poems a freer spirit, a sensibility more open, more 
pure, and more universal — alive to every feeling T^'hichcan 
make an impression on our nature, and extendmg to every 
circumstance and condition of the great family of man. 
A whole ^vorld is laid open to our view in the utmost beauty 
and clearness, a rich, a living, and an ever-mo^-ing picture. 
The two heroic personages of Achilles and Ulysses, which 
occupy the first places in this new state of existence, embo- 
dy the whole of a set of universal ideas and characters 
which are to be found m almost all the traditions of heroic 
ages, although no w^here else so happily unfolded or de- 
lineated with so masterly a hand. Achilles, a youthful he- 
ro, who, in the fulness of his victorious strength and beauty, 
exhausts all the glories of the fleeting life of man, but is 
doomed to an early death and a tragical destiny, is the first 
and the most lofty of these characters ; and a character of 
the same species is to be found in numberless poems of the 
heroic age, but perhaps no where, if we except the writers 
of Greece, so w^ell developed as in the sagas of our north- 
ern ancestors. Even among the most lively nations, the 
traditions and recollections of the heroic times are invested 
wdth a half mournful and melancholy feeling, a spirit of 
sorrow, sometimes elegiac, more frequently tragical, — which 
speaks at once to our bosoms from the inmost soul of the 
poetry in w^hich they are embodied : whether it be that the 
idea of a long vanished age of freedom, greatness, and 
heroism, stamps, of necessity, such an impression on those 
who are accustomed to live among the narrow and limited 
institutions of after times ; or w^hether it be not rather that 
poets have chosen to express, only in compositions of a cer- 
tain sort, and in relation to certain periods, those feeling* of 
distant reverence and self-abasement with which it is natural 
to us at all times to reflect on the happiness and simplicity 
of ages that have long passed awaj^ In UlNrsses we have 



HOMER S WRITINGS. 21 

displayed another and a. less elevated foim of the heroic 
life, but one scarcely less fertile in subjects for poetry, or 
less interesting to the curiosity of posterity. This is the 
voyaging and wandering hero, Avhose experience and acute- 
ness are equal to his valour, who is alike prepared to sutler 
with patience every hardship, and to plunge with boldness 
into every adventure ; and who thus affords the most unlim- 
iled scope for the poetical imagination, by giving the oppor- 
tunity of introducing and adorning whatever of wondeiful 
or of rare is supposed, during the infanc}" of geography, 
by the simple people of early societies, to belong to ages 
and place.s with which they are personally unacquainted. 
The Homeric works are equalled, or perhaps surpassed, in 
awful strength and depth of feeling, by the poetry of the 
north, — in audacity, in splendour, and in pomp, by that of 
the oriental nations. ' Their peculiar excellence lies in the 
intuitive perception of truth, the accuracy of description, 
and the great clearness of understanding, which are united 
in them, in a manner so unique, Avith all the simplicity of 
childhood, and all the richness of an unrivalled imagination. 
In them we find a mode of composition so full, that it often 
becomes prolix, and yet we are never weary of it, so match- 
less is the charm of the language, and so airy the lightness 
of the narrative ; an almost dramatic development of char- 
acters and passions, of speeches and replies ; and an almost 
historical fidelity in the description of incidents the most 
minute. It is perhaps, to this last peculiarity, which dis- 
tinguishes Homer so much, even among the poets of his 
own country, that he is indebted for the name by which he 
is known to us. For Homeros signifies, in Greek, a wit- 
ness or voucher, and this name has probably been given to 
him on account of his truth, — such truth, I mean, as it was 
in the power of a poet — especially a poet who celebrates 
heroic ages, to possess. To us he is indeed a Homer — a 
faithful voucher, an unfalsifying witness of the true shape 
and fashion of the heroic life. The other explanation • of 
the word Homeros — " a blind man" — is pointed out in the 
often-repeated and vulgar history which has come down to 
us of the life of a poet, concerning whom we know abso- 
lutely nothing, and is without doubt altogether to be des- 
pised. In the I oetry of Milton, even without the express 



2'i ILIAD AND ODYSSEY. 

assertion of the poet himself, we can discover many marks 
that he saw only with the internal eye of the mind, hut was 
deprived of the quickening- and cheering influence of the 
Hght of day. The poetry of Ossian is clothed, in like man- 
ner, with a melancholy twilight, and seems to be wrapped, 
as it were, in an everlasting cloud. It is easy to perceive 
that the poet himself was in a similar condition. But he 
who can conceive that the Iliad and the Odyssey, the most 
clear and luminous of ancient poems, were composed by 
one deprived of his sight, must, at least in some degree, 
close his own eyes, before he can resist the evidence of so 
many thousand circumstances which testify, so incontrovert- 
ibly, the reverse. 

In whatever way, and in whatever century, the Homeric 
poems might be created and fashioned, they place before us 
a time when the heroic age was on the decline, or had per- 
haps already gone by. For there are two different worlds 
which both exist together in the compositions of Homer, — 
the world of marvels and tradition, which still, however 
appears to be near and lively before the eyes of the poet ; 
and the living circumstances and present concerns of the 
world which produced the poet himself This commin- 
gling of the present and the past, (by which the first is adorn- 
ed, and the second illustrated,) lends, in a pre-eminent de- 
gree, to the Homeric poems, that charm which is so pecu- 
liarly their characteristic. Qf old the whole of Greece 
was ruled by kings who claimed descent from the heroic 
races. This is still the case in the world of Homer. Very 
soon, however, after his time, the regal form of government 
was entirely laid aside, and every people which had power 
enough to be independent, erected itself into a little republic. 
This change in the government of states, and the condition 
of their citizens, must have had a tendency to render the re- 
lations of society every day more and more prosaic. The 
old heroic tales must have, by degrees, become foreign to 
the feelings of the people, and there can be little doubt that 
this universal revolution of governments, must have mainly 
contributed towards bringing Homer into that sort of obliv- 
ion, out of which he was first recalled by the efforts of 
Solon and Peisistratus. 

The Homeric poems are of so much importance in the 



.ESCVIYLUS. 23 

literature both of Greece and of all E^i^ope. and are m so 
great a degree the fountam heads from ^Yhich all the refine- 
ment of the ancients was derived, that I could not resist the 
temptation of detaining you at least a few moments in con- 
sidering their character. It is, indeed, at all times my wish 
to confine myself to inventors : and I shall not scruple to 
pass, with the utmost rapidity, over whole centuries of imi- 
tation. I pass over the whole period which intervened be- 
tween Solon and the Persian war. This period was indeed 
chief!}'' occupied by weak imitations of Homer, or by at- 
tempts towards new exertions of intellect, and new species 
of writing, which reached not. till long afterwards, the full 
and perfect development of maturity. Besides the works of 
the greater part of the poets and other authors of this period, 
have entirely perished, and they are known to us only by 
scattered fragments, and the criticisms of their successors. 

The Persian war itself which forms, in a political point 
of view, the most remarkable epoch in the history of Greece, 
is illustrious, even when considered in regard to literature, 
and was distinguished by many great poets and authors, 
whose writings are still in our hands. Pindar, who was 
honoured by the Greeks, as without exception the most sub- 
lime of all their poets, survived the conclusion of this war ; 
during which his conduct gave rise to the suspicion that his 
dispositions were not patriotic, but favourable to the interests 
of the invaders, ^schylus, the oldest of the great trage- 
dians of Greece, was himself a soldier, and fought with 
heroism in many of those glorious battles — one of which 
he has celebrated by perhaps the most daring exertion of his 
dramatic genius. Herodotus, somewhat ^^ounger, was born 
only a few years before Xerxes undertook his prodigious 
enterprise against the Greeks : and when he read, before as- 
sembled Greece, the books of his history, (which do much 
honour, even to such a contest as they record.) the great 
events which occupy his narrative were yet fresh in the 
proud recollection of his victorious countr^anen. 

The reproach which has been cast upon the character of 
Pindar is easily accounted for. by the aversion so frequently 
apparent in his writings, for that predominance of the dem- 
ocratic principle which gave cause, in his time, to so many 
violent commotions throug-hout Greece, and which occasion- 



24 WRITINGS OF PINDAR. 

ed in the end consequences yet more destructive : — as well 
as by the evident partiality which he shews for the regaJ 
form of g-overnment, and that influence of the nobility which 
remained always so powerful among the Doric states. 
Monarchy and aristocracy, however, it is fair to observe, do 
not appear among 3.nj other people of antiquity in a light 
at once so mild and so illustrious as in the empire of Persia, 
■ — a government which, in whatever way its power might 
be abused by particular princes, was on the whole founded 
on the basis of elevatioii of sentiment, and purity of man- 
ners. 

As a Doric writer, Pindar is doubly valuable to us. for 
lie is the sole representative of the many that are lost. 
What we call Greek literature, and possess under that name 
m the great writers who have come down to us, is in truth 
only the literature of Ionia and Athens, and, if we take in 
the later times, of Alexandria. But at the same time when 
poetry, history, and philosophy, were flourishing in Athens 
and the Ionian states, the Doric people — (a race of Greeks 
so different from the lonians in manners and government, 
in language and in modes of thinking) — possessed a litera- 
ture distinct and peculiar to themselves, the existence of 
which is almost the only fact with respect to it of which we 
can be said to be assured ; — poets of every kind, — a peculiar 
form of drama, — and, after the time of Pj/'thagoras, philos- 
ophers also, and other writers. Although all these have 
perished, we have still Pindar ; and from him we may ex- 
tract at least some general idea of Doric manners, and if we 
make due allowances for the ornaments and partialities of 
the poet, of Doric life. 

Nothing can be more foreign to the style of Pindar than 
the elaborate wildness of imagination, and the artificial ob- 
scurity which characterize the modern imitations of this 
great poet, and have from them received the name of Pin- 
daric. If there be any obscurity in his own writings, it 
arises from the frequent allusions which he makes to things 
which are indeed foreign to us, but which were familiar and 
present to those for whom he wrote. While he is celebra- 
ting the victor in some games, it is not unnatural for him to 
introduce the praise of that heroic race from which he is 
descended — or of the city in w^hich he was born — or of thn 



GENIUh. OF ^SCHYLUS. 25 

duity in whose honour the games were held ; and this gives 
occasion, without doubt, to some abruptness of transition. 
In truth, these festival songs can scarcely be called lyric 
poems, at least they bear little resemblance to what we com- 
monly understand by that name. They are heroic or epic 
poems composed in celebration of particular events, which 
wt.re not merely sung, but accompanied with music and 
dancing, and brought forward in a manner somewhat dra- 
matic. The peculiar characteristics of Pindar are, — the 
lofty beauty and musical softness of his language, and his 
fondness of considering every subject in the most dignified 
point of view of which it is susceptible. The gracehil re- 
pose of high-born lords, who. in peaceful times, and sur- 
rounded by happy dependants, passed a careless hfe in chiv- 
alric pastimes and contests : or listened, among the society 
of congenial friends, to the songs of illustrious poets, and 
the celebration of their heroic ancestors. — these are the sub- 
jects which Pindar has treated with unrivalled excellence ; 
and such is the mode of life which he ascribes, not to his 
beloved victors alone, and the Doric nobles, but to the gods 
themselves in Olympus, and to those whose virtues shall en- 
title them to participate in the glories of an eternal life. 

The next great poet ^Eschylus. was one of another kind, 
and animated with a spirit altogether different. The war- 
like, bold, and lofty sentiments of a soldier inflamed with 
tne love of freedom, which are ever bursting forth in his 
poetry, place us at once within the circle of that feeling 
which might well be the predominant one of haughty 
Athens during the time of the great struggle which she so 
glorious,ly maintained. As a poet he appears only in that 
form which is the first in dignity, and the most peculiar to 
Greece — ^ihe great form of tragedy — which he himself first 
fashioned and unfolded, althouo-li perhaps he never carried 
it to the fulness of its perfection. His poetry is pre-emi- 
nently powerful, in the expression of the terrible and tragic 
passions. The depth of poetic feeling is in him accompa- 
nied with the intense earnestness of philosophic thought. 
A philosopher, well may he be called: and the reproach 
which has been thro\^m against him — ^that he had revealed 
in his poems the myi^teries, or the concealed doctrines of th^ 
scH7,ret S(.>ciety of Eleusis — is a proof how much truth in al! 
3 



26 CHARACTER OF HERODOTUS. 

things had been the object of his most earnest inquiries, in 
his spirit the whole m}^holog3^ of the Greeks assumed a 
neAV, a peculiar, a characteristic appearance. He has not 
been contented with the representation of individual tragical 
events : Throughout ail his works there prevails an univer 
sal and perpetual recurrence to a whole world of tragedy. 
The subjection of the old gods and Titans — and the history 
of that lofty race being subdued and enslaved by a meaner 
and less worthy generation — these are the great points to 
which almost all his narrations and all his catastrophes may 
be referred. The original dignity and greatness of nature 
and of man, and the daily declension of both into weakness 
and worthlessness. is another of his themes. Yet in the 
midst of the ruins and fragments of a perishing world, he 
delights to astonish us noAv and then with a view of that old 
gigantic strength — the spirit of which seems to be embodied 
in his Prometheus — ever bold and ever free — chained and 
tortured, yet invincible within. It is impossible to deny to 
this representation the merit of a moral sublimity, which is 
more glorious than any merely poetical beauty of which 
tragedy can be the vehicle. 

Herodotus, from whom we have our account of the Per- 
sian war, has been called the father of history. It is true 
that his work pretends to be nothing more than a chronicle 
— a candid and open narration of all the incidents which 
occurred in the neighbourhood, and made the greatest im- 
pression on the mind of the narrator, — with which he has, 
moreover, interwoven whatever he knew from any other 
source, either of the world or of its history — and into which 
he has introduced, by way of episode, a description of his 
travels, including all the observations which he had made 
on the manners and customs of foreign countries, little kno^vn 
to the Greeks in general, but carefully visited and studied 
by himself The number of his episodes^ and the free and 
poetical arrangement which he has followed^ have induced 
many critics to rank his work among the epic narrations of 
heroic actions. But. in reality . the truth, the simplicity, the 
clearness, the flexibility, and the unsought pathos which 
characterize Herodotus, are exactly the qualities which ren- 
der an historical work perfect in its kind, and which, but 
for their rarit}?-, we should all be ready to consider as the 



WORKS OF SOPHOCLES. 27 

most indispensably necessary in that species of composition 
He is the Homer of history. 

To these three great authors whom I have attempted to 
describe, s-ucceeded, although at some little distance of time, 
others of a rank equally exalted. The first is Sophocles 
In every species of intellectual developement — (as in the 
visible gradations of the physical world) — there is one 
short period of complete bloom — one highest point of ful- 
ness and perfection — w^hich is manifested, at the moment of 
its existence, by the beauty and the faultlessness of the form 
and the language in Avhich it is embodied. This point, not 
in the art of composing tragedies alone, but in the whole 
poetry and mental refinement of the Greeks, is the period 
of Sophocles. In him Ave find an overflSowing fulness of 
that indescribable charm of which Ave can perceiA'e only 
rare specimens in the Avritings of most other poets and 
writers — but Avhich, Avhenever Ave do find it, Ave at once, 
by intuition as it Avere, recognize to be the symbol of per- 
fection, AA^hether it makes its appearance in the- structure 
of tho Light or the style of language. Through the 
transparent beauty of his Avorks Ave can perceive the in- 
ternal harmony and beauty of his soul. It is Avortny 
of remark, that in most of the old poets many traces are 
to be found of a peculiar knoAvledge, £?nd just concep- 
tions, of the nature and attributes of the Deity. Or if 
it be impossible that they had really these conceptions — 
(Avhich seems to follow of necessity from what Ave knoAV re- 
specting the ages in Avhich they lived) — it Avere at least the 
height of injustice to deny, that the greatest and the best of 
them have anticipated, to a AA^onderful degree, those deep 
feelings of aAve and reverence Avith AA^hich Ave, born in hap- 
pier days, contemplate the revealed character of God. In 
none of the most ancient poets does this appear with more 
clearness and brilliancy than in Sophocles. In all coun- 
ines it has been the fate and progress of poetry to begin 
with the wonderful and the sublime, Avith the mysterious 
majesty of the gods, and the elevated character of ihe hero- 
ic times, — and ever afterwards to descend lower and lower 
from this lofty flight — to approach nearer and nearer to the 
earth — till at last it sinks never to rise again — into the 
common life and citizenship of ordinary men. The region 



28 EURIPIDES. 

most favourable for poetry is that which lies in the middle, 
between these two extremes, while the magnanimity of the 
heroic time still appears natural and unsought, and while 
our conceptions of Deity, although still fresh and animated, 
do not stalk before us in the gigantic forms of supernatural 
strength and terror, but have assumed the milder and more 
touching character of human tenderness, serenity, and re- 
pose. This is the peculiar region and delight of Sophocles. 
With regard to the artificial structure of Greek tragedy 
which was by him brought to its perfection, I shall have 
many opportunities of considering that subject in the sequel 
— and then more particularly, when I shall have to call 
your attention to the successful or abortive attempts of other 
nations to imitate, or naturalize among themselves, this 
great form of the art of poetry among the Greeks. 

Euripides was the successor of Sophocles in his art, but 
not in his sentiments, which are, indeed, those of an alto- 
gether different generation. He was at least as much an 
orator as a poet, and accordingly as men judge favourably 
or unfavourably of him, is commonly styled either a phi- 
sopher, or a sophist. But in the school of sophistry he 
certainly was formed, and from it he has unquestionably bor- 
rowed many ornaments of a nature altogether foreign from 
that of poetry ; a circumstance which is often dwelt upon 
with peculiar felicity by his unmerciful enemy and persecu- 
tor Aristophanes. But before I proceed to describe in a few 
words this writer, and some others of the declining age of 
Greece, it is necessary that I should first explain, in a brief 
and general manner, by what steps, about the commence- 
ment of the civil wars and political corruptions of the coun- 
try, the race of sophists succeeded in acquiring that wide, 
destructive, and subduing influence over the intellectual 
character of Greece, which they maintained without oppo- 
sition till Socrates rose ip against them; who, having 
brought back the perverted taste of the Athenians as far as 
was possible, from the errors of these pernicious teachers, 
became the founder of that noble school out of which Plato 
proceeded. 



LECTURE 11. 



THE LATER LITERATURE OF THE GREEKS THEIR SOPHISTS AND PHILO. 

SOPHERS THE ALEXANDRIAN AGE. 

In my first lecture I endeavoured, by a rapid sketch, to 
recall to your recollection the brilliant spectacle of Greek 
genius, as it flourished for a few years in all its power and 
pre-eminence. I must now set before you the darker side 
of the picture, and proceed to contemplate the effects of thai 
principle of decay, whose operation is destined to follow so 
closely and so certainly, after every period distinguished by 
the greatness of its inventions, and the beauties of its produc- 
tions — and which here also, when manners had become im- 
pure, and governments corrupted, by means of a false and 
deceitful sophistry, succeeded in accomplishmg the utter 
ruin of art and genius among the Greeks. 

The first great writer who sets before us a view of this 
decline and corruption of Greece, as manifested in the inci- 
dents of her political history, is Thucydides. By the lofti- 
ness of his style, and the depth of his reflections, this author 
has secured to himself a place among the very first writers 
of Greece. His history is the masterpiece of energetic re- 
presentation, — such was the judg.nent of all antiquity con- 
cerning it, and on that account it was commonly said to be, 
not indeed a poetical, but a historical drama. And, truly, 
well might the history of that great civil war. which occa- 
sioned the decline, and ended in the ruin of his once flou- 
rishing, happy, and powerful country, appear to the histo 
rian himself as possessing all the life and interest of a fear- 
ful tragedy. The events which he has recorded are indeed 
invested, to our eyes, with an interest yet more mighty: 
for to them we can now trace consequences which in his 
time could not have been apparent — in them we perceive 
th-e causes of the decay and downfall, not of Athens only 

S* 



30 THUCYDIDES 

but of universal Greece. Thucydides both framed and pe'' 
fected that form of historical writing which is peculiar lo 
the Greeks. The characteristics of his method of compos- 
ing history consist, first, in the interweaving of political 
speeches, framed in a manner at once clear and elaborate, 
which introduce us into the secret motives and councils by 
which the political events of the period w^ere governed, en- 
able us to survey every particular incident exactly from that 
point of view in which it was regarded by each of the most 
opposite parties, and lay open the most hidden wiles of con- 
tending statesmen, with an acumen superior to what was 
ever exerted by the craftiest of them all ; secondly, in an 
almost poetical; minute, energetic, and lively representation 
of battles, and those other external incidents which occupy 
but too great a space in the history of human affairs ; and 
lastly, in the accumulation of all those highest excellencies 
of style, which can be embodied in the richest, most orna- 
mented, and most energetic prose. 

The similarity of their political institutions, and the equal 
weight and influence which was, under their form of go- 
vernment, attached to popular oratory, enabled the Romans 
to naturalize among themselves this particular species of 
writing, with greater ease, and a success more perfect than 
any other department of the literature of the Greeks. With 
us modern Europeans the case is widely different ; our at- 
tempts towards imitation of the Greek historians have been 
in general lamentably unsuccessful. The relations of so- 
ciety among us are totally of another sort from what they 
were in the republics of antiquity, and oratory exerts no 
longer over mankind that imperative and often destructive 
influence which it formerly possessed. Above all, such is 
tJ-ie etlect of that immense storehouse of facts which we have 
it in oui power to review in the collected history of the 
world, that we have lost all taste for minute and poetical 
descriptions of battles, sieges, and other external incidents : 
we desire instead of these, short and precise sketches which 
carry us without any circumlocution to the point in view, 
and explain in simple narrative, events as they really hap- 
pened, with the true causes which brought them about. 
Herodotus, distinguished as he is by unadorned simplicity 
and beautiful clearness, possesses a much greater share of 



PECULIARITIES OF HIS STYLE. 31 

this expressive brevity, and coincides much more nearly 
with our ideas of excellence — or at least with the scope of 
our own attempts in historical composition, than Thucydides. 
He accordingly is the model of modern historians, and in- 
deed, he was the model of Thucydides himself, who, how- 
ever in some respects he may fall short of perfection, holds 
unquestionably the first place among the historians of Greece. 
His want of perfection lies neither in the arrangement of 
his history as a whole, nor in the connection of its parts, for 
these are throughout dignified and exquisite, or as was ex- 
pressed in the universal encomium of antiquity, well worthy 
of a great historical trpgedy ; but merely in his style, which 
is somewhat massive aiid hard, and not unfrequently obscure. 
Whether it be that the last touch of the master's hand was 
denied, not to the latter part alone and the con ! usion, but 
(as it has been conjectured by a critic of great dis:ernment), 
to the general review and polishing of the whol ■ work ; or 
whether it be, that it was impossible for one who composed 
before the expiration of ths age in Avhich the art of writino 
in prose Avas first created and fashioned — (more particularly 
for one who made use of a style so ambitious as that which 
was attempted by this prince of historians), to reach at once 
the masterly eminence to which he has attained, without 
leaving behind him some traces of the laborious straining 
and toil which must have preceded the accomplishment of 
his daring undertaking; or whether it might not be that 
Thucydides found a style, such as he has employed, sub- 
lime and masterly, yet rough and in some measure repulsive, 
the most suitable vehicle for the dark contents of his tragic 
story, — the fearful catastrophes, the decay and the ruin'of 
his country, — in so much that he disdained to record and 
lament them, in the language of elegance, but considei ^d 
himself throughout the progress of his work — (what he has 
powerfully declared himself in its commencement) — as one 
framing a history destined to be a 'possession unto eternity* 
While Thucydides has thus set before our eyes, and ex- 
plained in a general manner, the causes and progress of in 
ternal corruption in all the states and societies of Greece; 
A.ristophanes, on the other hand, has painted the deep de- 

* Kr>7/ia ej xst. 



32 



ARISTOPHANES. 



cline of manners not only in Athens, but throughout all the 
republics of Greece, in a manner and with a power of which 
those who are unacquainted with him can form no concep- 
tion, but the place of which could not have been supplied to 
us by any other poetical work, or by any monument what- 
ever of antiquity. In this point of view, when considered 
as a document of the history of ancient manners, the value 
of his works is now universally recognized. 

If we would judge of Aristophanes as a writer and as a 
poet, we must transplant ourselves freely and entirely into 
the age in which he lived. In the modern ages of Europe 
it has often been made the subject of reproach against parti- 
cular nations or periods, that literature in general, but prin- 
cipally the poets and their works, have too exclusively en- 
deavoured to regulate themselves according to the rules of 
polished society, and, above all, the prejudices of the female 
sex. Even among those nations and in those periods which 
have been most frequently charged with this fault, there has 
been no want of authors, who have loudly lamented that it 
should be so, and asserted and maintained with no mconsi- 
derable zeal, that the introduction of this far-sought elegance 
and gallantry, not only into the body of literature as a whole, 
but even into those departments of it where their presence 
is most unsuitable, has an evident tendency to make litera- 
ture tame, poor, uniform, and unmanly. It may be, that 
there is some foundation for this complaint : the whole lite- 
rature of antiquity, but particularly that of the Greeks, lies 
open to a reproach of an entirely opposite nature. If our 
literature has sometimes been too exclusively feminine, theirs 
was at all times uniformly and exclusively masculine, not 
unfrequently of a nature far more rough and unpolished thar 
might have been expected from the general intellectual cha- 
racter and refinement of the ancients. 

In the m-ost ancient times, indeed, (as, even at this day 
we can judge from the picture of manners which is unfolcl- 
ed to us in the Homeric poems), the situation of women in 
Greece poss-essed a considerable share of freedom and re- 
spectability ; if we compare it with that of the same sex m 
other countries, at a period equally early in the formation ol 
society, we may even say that it was happy. But in later 
times the Greeks adopted by degrees all the tyramcal pre- 



FEMALE INFLUENCE, ETC. 33 

judices of their Asiatic neighbours, and, like them, devoted 
the whole female sex to total seclusion, confinement, and 
degradation. 1 he republican form of government was of 
itself, inimical in the highest degree to the influence and im- 
})ortance of the women ; for its evident tendency was to fill 
the whole life and soul of the men with matters of public mo- 
ment — with vieAYS which, whether they were just or false, 
and events which, whether they w^ere real or fictitious, were 
all of a nature purely patriotic — and. above all, to engross 
the whole attention of each individual wdth the peculiar po- 
litical tenets or prejudices of the sect or party to which he 
belonged. It is true that the situation of the women was not 
every where the same ; on the contrary, it was extremely 
different in different states : and the several tribes which 
were included under the common name of Greeks, disagreed 
in this matter as much as they did in almost every othei 
point either of manners or of politics. In Sparta, and m 
general among all the descendants of the Doric race, more 
particularly among those of them who had adopted the 
ethical principles of the Pythagoreans, the natural rights 
and dignity of the female character were recognized infinite- 
ly more than in the Ionian republics. Upon the whole, 
however, it were in vain to deny that the Asiatic system of 
secluding and confining the women had obtained a ver}^ ex- 
tensive influence throughout Greece, — a circumstance which 
can indeed be easily traced in certain unhappy effects which 
it produced on the works of Grecian genius. In these 
works, however masterly in other respects may be their 
excellence, there is often wanting a certain delicate bloom 
of womanly tenderness and refinement, Avhich is very far 
from being fit for introduction ever^r w^here, — than which 
nothing can be more utterly detestable Avhen it bears the 
slightest mark of being far sought or laboured — but which 
we miss with no inconsiderable regret in those situations 
where it might have been appropiat^dy admitted — to say 
nothing of the disgust which we feel when its place is oc- 
cupied bv vulgarity or coarseness, whether real or affected. 
Through this vice in their mode of life, the writings of the 
ancients in general, but most of all those of the Greeks, 
have not only been rendered less polished than might have 
Deen expected from people so distinguished as they were for 



34 DECLINE OF GRECIAN MANNERS. 

refinement and urbanity ; the contempt and depression of 
the female sex have wrought their own revenge by effects 
yet more positively injurious, and stained the whole body of 
their literature with a rudeness that is always unmannerly, 
and not unfrequently unnatural. Even in the most beautiful 
and noble of the works of the ancients, our attention is 
every now and then irresistibly recalled by some circum- 
stance or other to this point, in which their morality was 
so defective, and their manners so perverted from the stand- 
ard of their original simplicity. 

Here, where we are treating of the decline of Grecian 
manners, and of the writer who has painted that decline 
the most powerfully and the most clearly — the considera- 
tion of this common defect of antiquity has, i nnagme, been 
not improperly introduced. But when this imperfection 
has once been distinctly recognized as one, the reproach of 
which affects in justice not the individual writers, but rather 
the collective character, manners, and literature of antiquity : 
^* were absurd to allow ourselves to be any longer so much 
influenced by it, as to disguise from ourselves the great 
qualities often found in combination wath it in writings 
which are altogether invaluable to us, both as specimens of 
poetical art, and as representations of the spoken wit of a 
very highly refined state of society — to refuse, in one 
word, to perceive in Aristophanes the great poet which he 
really is. It is true that the species and form of his writing 
— if indeed that can be said with propriety to belong to any 
precise species or form of composition — are things to which 
^ve have no parallel in modern letters. All the peculiarities 
of the old comedy may be traced to those deifications of 
physical powers, which were prevalent among the ancients. 
Among them, in the festivals dedicated to Bacchus and the 
other frolicsome deities, every sort of freedom — even the 
wildest ebullitions of mirth and jollity, were not only things 
permitted, they were strictly in character, and formed, in 
truth, the consecrated ceremonial of the season. The fan- 
cy, above all things, a power by its very nature impatient 
of constraint, the' birth-right and peculiar possession of the 
poet, was on these occasions permitted to attempt the most 
audacious heights, and revel in the wildest world of dreams, 
■ — loosened for a moment from all those fetters of law, cus- 



PLAYS OF ARISTOPHANES. 35 

tora, and propriety, which at other times, and in other 
species of writing, must ever regulate its exertion even in 
the hands of poets. The true poet, however, at whatever 
time this old privilege granted him a Satuinalian licence 
for the play of his fancy, was uniformly impressed with a 
sense of the obligation under which he lay, not only by a 
rich and various display of his inventive genius, but by the 
highest elegance of language and versification, to maintain 
entire his poetical dignity and descent, and to show in the 
midst of all his extravagances, that he was not animated 
by prosaic petulance, nor personal spleen, but inspired with 
the genuine audacity and fearlessness of a poet. Of this 
there is the most perfect illustration in Aristophanes. In 
language and versification his excellence is not barely ac- 
knowledged — it is such as to entitle him to take his place 
among the first poets to whom Greece has given birth. In 
many passages of serious and earnest poetry which 
(thanks to the boundless variety and lawless formation of 
the popular comedy of Athens.) he has here and there in- 
troduced. Aristophanes shews himself to be a true poet, and 
capable, had he so chosen, of reaching the highest eminence 
even in the more dignified departments of his art. How- 
ever much his writings are disfigured by a perpetual ad- 
mixture of obscenity and filth, and however great a part of 
his v/it must to us in modern times be altogether unintelli- 
gible, — after deducting from the computation every thing 
that is either offensive or obscure, there will still remain to 
the readers of Aristophanes a luxurious intellectual banquet 
of wit, fancy, invention, and poetical boldness. Liberty, 
such as that of which he makes use, could indeed have ex- 
isted nowhere but under such a lawless democracy as tha* 
which ruled Athens during the life of Aristophanes. But 
that a species of drama, originally intended solely for popu- 
lar amusement in one particular city, should have admitted 
or hazarded so rich a display of poetry — this is a circum- 
stance which cannot fail to give us the highest possible idea, 
if not of the general respectability, at least of the hveliness, 
spirituality, and correct taste of the populace in that remark- 
able state which formed the focus and central point of alJ 
the eloquence and refinement, as well as of all the lawless- 
ness and all the corruption, of the Greeks. 



36 CHARACTERISTICS OF HIS WORKS. 

Tills might be abundantly sufficient, not inde(";d to repre- 
sent Aristophanes as a fit subject of imitation — for that he 
can never be — but to set his merit as a poet in its true light. 
But if we examine into the use which he has made as a 
man — but more particularly as a citizen — of that liberty 
which was his poetical birthright, both by the m.anners ot 
antiquity, and by the constitution of his country, we shall 
find many things which might be said still farther in hit 
vindication, and which cannot indeed fail to raise him per- 
sonally in our esteem. His principal merit as a patriot 
consists in the fidelity with which he paints all the corrup- 
tions of the state, and in the chastisement which he inflicts 
on the pestilent demagogues who caused that corruption oi 
profited by its effects. The latter duty was attended wit}< 
no inconsiderable danger in a state governed by a demo 
cracy, and during a time of total anarchy — yet Aristophanes 
has performed it with the most fearless resolution. It is 
true that he pursues and parodies Euripides with unrelent- 
ing severity ; but this is perfectly in character with that old 
spirit of merciless enmity which animated all the comic 
poets against the tragedians : and it is impossible not to per- 
ceive that not only the more ancient ^schylus, but even 
his cotemporary Sophocles, is uniformly mentioned in a 
tone altogether different, in a temper moderate and sparing 
— nay, very fre-quently with the profoundest feelings of ad- 
miration and respect. It forms another grievous subject of 
reproach against Aristophanes, that he has represented in 
colours so odious, Socrates, the most wise and the most vir- 
tuous of all his fellow-citizens : it is however by no means 
improbable that this was not the effect of mere poetical 
wantonness ; but that Aristophanes selected, without any 
bad intention, that first and best of illustrious names, that he 
might nnder it render the Sophists as ridiculous as they de- 
served to be, and as foolish and worthless in the eyes of the 
people as he could make them. The poet, it is not unlikely, 
in his own mind, mingled and confounded, even without 
wishing it, this inestimable sage with his enemies the So- 
phists, to whose school he had at first indeed been conducted 
by his inclination, but whose maxims he studied, and whose 
schools he frequented in his maturer years, solely with the 
view ol" making" himself master of that which he intended 



CULTIVATION OF THE ARTS. 37 

to refute and overthrow ; the utter vanity of whose doctrines 
induced him to begin the arduous attempt to revolutionize 
the whole intellectual character of his countrymen, and re- 
instate truth in her rightful supremacy. 

Not only political institutions and private manners, but 
the art of eloquence itself, and all those branches of know- 
ledge which exert themselves and are communicated by 
speech, and, in short, the whole system of thinking, among 
the Greeks, were poisoned, and corrupted, and degraded by 
the spirit of Sophistry, till Socrates turned back the stream 
of destruction, and guarded his country as well as might be 
against the danger of its future devastations. This inde- 
fatigable inquirer and friend of truth, was a simple citizen 
of Athens, spent his days in the most narrow and limited 
situation of life, and had no immediate influence except on a 
small circle of chosen disciples and congenial friends, and 
yet his was a life of greater importance to Greece, and his 
name forms perhaps a more remarkable epoch in her his- 
tory, than that of either the lawgiver Solon, or the con- 
queror Alexander. But before I can set in an intelligible 
manner before your eyes this memorable struggle of Socra- 
tes, the regeneration of philosophy which resulted from it, 
and the subsequent entire renovation and exaltation of the 
intellectual character of Greece, it is necessary that I should 
first look backwards for a moment to the more ancient phi- 
losophy and popular belief of the Greeks, as well as to the 
commencement of that spirit of sophistry which sprung up 
between that philosophy and that belief, and was reconcile- 
able with neither. 

However conspicuous was the pre-eminence of the 
Greeks in every thing which relates to art and general cul- 
tivation, in every thing which belongs to the external ap- 
pearance and sensible surface of human refinement ; it is 
impossible to deny that those principles which formed the 
groundwork of all these brilliant and beautiful manifesta- 
tions, — the ideas of the Greeks concerning the nature of the 
universe, con'^'^rning God and man — were far too material, 
and, in effect, if not despicable, at least unsatisfactory. The 
more ancient of the Greek philosophers themselves were 
indeed all of this opinion, for we find them perpetually lay 
ing hold of Homer and Hesiod, as the most known and ce- 

4 



Jo HOSTILITY TO POETRY. 

lebrated masters of the Greek mythology, not to appro\e of 
or praise them, but co ridicule in the mass their poetical 
theology, and to reprehend and condemn them, in the severest 
terms, for the unworthy, irrational, and immoral representa- 
tions of the Deity which are contained in their works, and 
had, through their means, become constituent parts of the 
popular faith. To us, indeed, these poetical representations 
wear no appearance but that of a beautiful play of imagina- 
tion, and, as such, they are well fitted to furnish us both 
with delight and inspiration; but if we reflect a little deeper 
on the matter, if we consider that these pleasing vagaries of 
fancy were really received into the popular creed as so 
many sober truths, and contemplate the necessary conse- 
quences of this, the use to which the herd of vulgar and un- 
questioning believers must have applied them, in spite of all 
our partiality for the bewitching poetry in which these ab- 
surdities are embodied, we shall have, I imagine, no greal 
difficulty in adopting, at least to a certain extent, the unfa- 
vourable and condemnatory judgment of the philosophers; 
we shall at least feel and understand the grounds of their 
aversion. It is indeed very probable that they carried their 
enmity to poetry, which had been rationally enough com- 
menced, much too far, and that they expressed themselves 
much too generally in their vituperation of poetical practice ; 
for in truth the development of Greek gennis was so diver- 
sified, that nothing was more difficult than to pronounce a 
judgment at once just and general concerning any part of 
their literature, more particularly in the early period of its 
history. However this might be, it is extremely probable 
that the poems previous to the time of Homer, those songs 
which celebrated the labours of Hercules — the war of gods, 
giants, and heroes — the beleaguering of Thebes by the seven 
champions, — ^but above all, the marvellous expedition of 
Jason and the Argonauts, — might have, in nart at least, 
contained views more profound, and been founded on prin 
ciples much more elevated, than the later heroic poems of 
the Trojan time. Some things in these more ancient poems 
might coincide much more closely with the remains of Asia- 
tic theology, than any production of the Greeks, after their 
mode of thinking had been changed — they might even amount 
to positive recollections of an Asiatic ancestry. Such, at least, 



HESIOD AND ORPHEUS. ' 39 

to give a single example, appears plainly to be the case with 
that beautiful piece of poetry which goes under the name 
of Hesiod, wherein the existence of an original and gold- 
en age of innocence, during which undisturbed felicity was 
the lot of men living m friendship with the gods, and them- 
selves godlike in their lives; next, that evil age in which 
strength and valour become the tests of justice ; and then 
the whole train of subsequent degradation and corruption 
among mankind — are all distinctly and orthodoxly set forth. 
In relation to these probably more profound and dignified 
conceptions of the most ancient poets of Greece, Orpheus is 
a name, although possibly fabulous, by no means destitute 
of meaning to the student of history ; for it represents at 
least the name of some real poet who revealed and commu- 
nicated to his fellow-countrymen, in such heroic songs as 
were best adapted for the spirit of his age, the holy symbols 
and mysterious secrets of these ancient recollections. 

Whatever may have been the case in more remote pe- 
riods, and of whatever nature the poetry of Orpheus may 
have been, these more dignified conceptions, of w^hich I 
have been speaking, are altogf^ther lost, or appear only in 
a few very faint traces, in the works of the Homeric age. 
In the Theogony which has been left us by Hesiod. a work 
whose authority was apparently very universally admitted, 
and which may be taken as a standard by which to judge 
of many similar works that have perished, — these concep- 
tions are indeed sufficiently manifest ; but they are set forth 
in a manner too material and altogether contemptible. Ac- 
cording to this poem the world is a mere appendix to chaos. 
To say nothing of the inadequate and senseless descriptions 
of the gods, nature is represented only in her character of 
fertility and fulness of life, and that under an immense va 
riety of emblems, which commonly, however, terminate in 
the idea of some enormous animal. The life of th^ physi- 
cal world, again, is according to the doctrines of this poetical 
theology, represented merely as a perpetual circumrotation 
of love and hatred, attraction and repulsion; but we can 
scarcely perceive the least surmise even of the existence of 
that higher spirit, which has indeed its proper residence in 
the intellect of man, but which even in external nature — at 



40 THEOGONY OF HESIOD. 

least in certain parts of her structure, — breaks through and 
is made manifest. 

In this theology there is contained, in fact, absolute mate- 
rialism — -not indeed set forth systematically with all the pre- 
tension of science and philosophy — ^but clothed in poetical 
form, and adapted to take fast and exclusive hold of the po 
pular belief Of Homer, indeed, we cannot with propriet); 
say so much; at least no such thorough materialism ap 
pears on the face of his writing's. There is much more ol 
it, however, than could have been wished in those altogether 
human representations, which his poetical fancy has given 
us of the character and conduct of deities ; for in them we 
can perceive no trace either of what we, in philosophical as 
well as in common language, call religion, or any other 
principle which might be substituted in its place. Not that 
there is any unbelief or scepticism, or any openly and con- 
temptibly material conception of the divine nature, in the 
writings of Homer : His defect is rather a total ignorance, 
or an incapability, like that of a child, for forming any ade- 
quate idea of God — diversified, hoAvever, here and there, as 
is the case in children, with an exquisite feeling, or a happy 
surmise, or a solitary flash of the truth. 

According to the view which I have now been taking of 
the matter, Hesiod must be entirely given up to the strong 
and well-founded reproaches of the ancient philosophers, 
but the judgment which we should form of Homer ought 
to be somewhat more favourable. Yet there is no difficulty 
in seeing what parts even of his m3rthology must have given 
offence to the moralists of after times, and it is not to be de- 
nied that upon the whole, in a poetical, but much more in a 
moral point of view, his representations of the gods form 
the weakest parts of all his productions. If the Homeric 
heroes, in their size and strength at least, appear superhu- 
man and godlike, it is equally true that the Homeric gods 
are of a nature infinitely coarser, and much more entangled 
with human infirmities, and in all respects less godlike be- 
ings, than the heroes in whose quarrels they engage. This 
may easily be accounted for, if we reflect that, m framing 
the character and actions of his deities, the poet did not, in 
ail probability, consider himself as entitled to exert the en- 
nobling power of his own imagination, but adhered as 



THE HEATHEN DEITIES. 41 

closely as he could to the relics of ancient tradition, and 
the substance of the popular belief. 

All the forms attributed to deities, and all the incidents 
which compose their history in the popular creed of anti 
quity, had originally some covert meaning — most frequently 
of a physical nature. Now, it might easily have been fore- 
seen that an attempt to represent in this manner physical 
objects and events under the guise of human beings, and hu- 
man actions, could not fail to terminate, very often at once 
in absurdity and immorality. Let us only consider the fa- 
ble of Saturn or Chronos, who is represented as eating his 
own children. Nothing can be more odious than this, if 
we take it in its human or moral acceptation ; and yet no- 
thing more is intended by it than to set forth the perpetual 
decay and renewal of external things, the destroying and 
reproductive powers of nature herself Hesiod abounds in 
similar fictions and representations, which become altogether 
senseless, improper, and vicious, the moment we view them 
without reference to their original and physical meaning. 
In like manner, that symbolic meaning, which was origi- 
nally intended to be shadowed forth in all the corporeal re- 
presentations of divine or superhuman nature, is extremely 
hostile to beauty in all the imitative arts. Let us take for 
instance the representation of a hundred-handed giant, a 
plain and obvious emblem of strength and enormous activity. 
In a poem we might find no great fault with this, and in- 
deed we are familiar with its occurrence both in Homer 
and Hesiod ; but our tolerance is only produced by the dul- 
ness of our imaginations, and the difficulty with which we 
form to ourselves any precise and lively idea of a thing de- 
scribed to us only in words. Were the hundred-handed 
giant set distinctly and substantially before us in a work of 
sculpture, we should be as much shocked with the deformi- 
ty of this Grecian image, as we can be with any of the 
hideous and unearthly monsters which fill the gloomy tem- 
ples of Jaggernaut or Benares. Or we may take any re- 
presentations of a similar nature, however superior to the 
one I have instanced, both in spirituality and in dignity : 
we shall find the best of them almost equally inimical to the 
beauty of form. The Indians, for example, embody their 
conception of the three great exertions of the power of one 



42 THE GREEK MYTHOLOGY. 

Divine Being, — creature, preservation, and destruction,— 
in the image of a figure with three heads. In Hke manner 
and with a similar typical meaning and purpose, the Brah- 
ma of Hindostan is represented with four faces, exactly as 
the Janus of ancient Italy was represented with two. All 
these symbolical images are hostile to the beauty of imita- 
tive representations. The art of sculpture reached accor- 
dingly far greater perfection among the Greeks than it ever 
attained among the Egyptians, merely because the former 
people did not adhere so pertinaciously as the latter to those 
ancient symbols, but were perpetually laying them more 
and more aside, in so far as they were chargeable with de- 
formity ; although they at no time framed their images of 
superior beings after mere human models, but were ever 
solicitous to stamp, upon the features w^hich they borrowed 
from them, the seal and impress of divinity. In their poetry 
ilso, the same thing may be remarked ; for it was uniformly 
attempted by all their serious poets, but most of all by the 
grand and noble lyrical poet on whose genius I have already 
commented, to soften down and polish away those rough 
and barbarous circumstances in their ancient mythology, 
which are most offensive to a refined understanding. It is 
true that these circumstances were never so thoroughly dis- 
guised in their poetry as in their sculpture, for the poetry 
of the Greeks was religious in its origin, and depended for 
its existence on that very mythology, of whose deformities, 
however glaring, it would have been hazardous, and in all 
probability quite useless, for. any one poet to attempt the era- 
dication. For this reason, oven in those poets who are the 
fondest of representing deities as mere men, there are always 
some traces to be discovered of those ancient types. A sin- 
gle example from Homer (whose deities are the most hu- 
man of all,) will render this abundantly perspicuous. When 
Jupiter, in an ebullition of rage by no means inconsistent 
with his Homeric character, tells the assembled gods, that 
although they should fasten a chain to the heavens, and 
drag it downwards with united strength, they w^ould not be 
able to move him from his seat — nay, that, if it so pleased 
him, he could by one touch draw them all up to him from 
the earth : at first sight this appears to be nothing more than 
a piece of rough and swaggering redomontado, yet there is 



GRECIAN ALLEGORIES. 43 

no doubt that in this passage reference is made to the chain- 
like connection which runs through all things, and unites, 
in some sort, not only the heavens with the earth, and the 
earth with the sea — but the greatest and the most dignified, 
with the weakest and the humblest of intellectual existences. 
So accordingly was this allegory universally explained 
among the ancients. A second passage sets the matter in a 
yet clearer light, and is even more disagreeable to our feel- 
ings, when considered only in its ob\dous and primary ac- 
ceptation. In another of these customary fits of passion, 
the father of gods and men desires Juno to reflect on the 
strife which she of old had kindled, by persevering in her 
unmerciful persecution of Hercules, his favourite son ; and 
how, in consequence of that strife, the queen of heaven 
(which antiquity interpreted to mean the sky.) had been 
suspended by her fastened hands, from the vault of the firma- 
ment, having each foot burdened with the weight of an an- 
vil. It is probable that the poet, in this instance, did not 
shadow forth some mere allegorical conception of his own, 
but alluded to some individual and familiar hieroglyphical 
carving in one of the temples of his country. Passages of 
this nature, however, are of very rare occurrence in Homer, 
and on this account many commentators either reject them 
as not genuine, or endeavour to furnish them with some 
different interpretation. 

It was probably owing to these and other similar repre- 
sentations, that the great moralists of Greece entertained an 
unfavourable opinion, not of Homer only, but of poetry it- 
self, and in their ideal systems of perfect legislation and 
government, entirely prohibited the use of that impassiona- 
ting art. But the poetical application of these relics of a 
former time, — of this imperfect, and, in a great measure, un- 
intelligible system of symbols, must have been equally 
offensive to the moral writers, for another reason of an 
altogether different kind. In consequence of that universal 
vanity and ambition of the ancients, which attributed the 
origin of all their noble and illustrious famUies to some- 
hero, and the birth of every hero to some god, the number- 
less procession of these demigod-children ascribed to all the 
deities, but particularly to Jupiter, was such, that Ovid Jias 
entirely fiTed several books of his great poem Avith an ac- 



ii THEIR INFLUENCE ON CHARACTER. 

count of the divine amours which gave occasion to their 
birth. All this, as I have akeady observed, is regarded by 
us as the mere display of a luxurious and delightful imagi- 
nation, and we can scarcely conceive the possibility of any 
serious and pious belief having ever been attached to absur- 
dities so amusing. But how could the ancient moralists 
consider so lightly poetical fictions which formed the root 
and essence of the popular creed of their country 1 — a creed, 
too, on which the whole internal principles, and exterior de- 
monstrations of moral feeling were substantially dependent ; 
whose pernicious influence on the character of those who 
adopted it, was every day before their eyes, in the willing 
zeal with which their believing countrymen imitated the 
moral transgressions of their gods. 

In so far, then, the reproaches of the old philosophers, if 
we set them in a proper point of view, may be both under- 
stood and justified. But, in truth, before we can judge aright 
of ihis matter, we must draw a line of distinction between 
Homer, individually considered, and the ancient mythology 
'aken as a general system of belief Homer, in spite of all 
his defects, (and we have already touched upon most of 
them,) has been the source of so much good both to Greece 
and to all Europe, that we cannot sufficiently express the 
gratitude we owe to Solon and the Pisistratidse for preser- 
ving to us this great poet, whom the philosophers, had their 
opinions ever gained the mastery, would in all probability 
have brought into forgetfulness, as they have already done 
every thing that lay in their power to bring him into con- 
tempt. But if we consider the Greek m3rthology in gene- 
ral, and out of connection with this prince of all ancient 
poets, we shall not be able to close our eyes to the fact, that 
it was not only defective in the particular moral ideas which 
it unfolded, but was, on the whole, and in the innermost 
principles on which it was founded, material, inadequate, 
and unworthy of the divine nature. It should not howevei 
be forgot, that these very philophers, who indulged them- 
, selves so freely in railing against the poets and their mytho- 
logy, had themselves, previous to the time of Socrates, 
scarcely ever m-ade any inquiries into the proper nature of 
the Deity, and, indeed, very seldom advanced farther than 
c(^ii:ain vag-ue and ^'ndefinite feeling's of veneration for the 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 45 

elemental powers of the physical world : — moreover, from 
being philosophers, they were very soon converted into 
sophists, and were, in that character, injfinitely more dan- 
gerous, both in a* political and in a moral point of ^"iew. than 
any of the old poets ever were, with all their ignorance and 
simplicity. 

Not only the poetry, but the philosophy of the ancients, 
had its origin among the Asiatic Greeks. The same cli- 
mate which produced Homer and Herodotus, gave birth 
also to the first and greatest of the philosophers. — not only 
to Thales and Heraclitus. who founded in their own time 
the Ionian school, properly so named ; but also to those who 
extended the influence of its doctrines in Magna Grecia, and 
among the southern Italians, — as. for example, the poet 
Xenophanes, and the institutor of the great learned confe- 
deracy, P}-thagoras. We are all accustomed to talk with 
wonder and reverence of the art and the poetry of the Greeks ; 
yet perhaps their genius appears no where so active, so in- 
ventive, and so rich as in their philosophy. -Even their 
errors are instructive, for they were always the fruit of re- 
flection. They had no beaten path of truth prepared for 
them, but were obliged to seek out and beat a pathway for 
themselves ; and accordingly they are best able to teach us 
how far men can, by the unassisted power of their own na- 
ture, advance in the inquiry after truth. But this philoso- 
phy is well deserving of a little farther consideration. 

It was the custom of the Ionian philosophers to reverence 
one or other of the elements as the first and primary" prin- 
ciple of nature — some water, as Thales, — others fire, as 
Heraclitus. It is scarcely to be believed that they meant 
all this in a mere corporeal acceptation. They recognized, 
it is probable, under the name of the liquid element, not only 
the nourishing and connecting power of water, but also the 
general principle of perpetual change and variety in nature. 
And in like maimer, when Heraclitus said that fire was the 
origin of all things, he did not surely refer merely to exter- 
nal and visible fire, but meant rather to express that hidden 
heat, that internal fire, v\-hich Avas universally considered by 
ihe ancients as the peculiar and vivifying power in every 
thing that lives. Heraclitus, the founder of this doctrme, 
seems to have had conceptions of a nature more profundand 



46 ANAXAGORAS. 

spiritual than any of his brethren. But perhaps the inca- 
pacity of all these philosophers to set themselves free from 
the fetters of materialism, may be best illustrated by the ex-. 
ample of Anaxagoras. This philosopher 'is well worthy of 
mention, for he was the first before Socrates who recognized 
the existence of a supreme intelligence, directing and go- 
verning the whole system and concerns of nature and the 
universe ; and yet he attempted to illuminate the world by 
recurrence to those minute and imperceptible elemental 
atoms, of which, according to the doctrine of materialism, 
the whole universe is composed. This atomical philosophy, 
which accounts for the creation of the world on the princi- 
ple of mechanical attraction, was very early reduced to the 
shape of a regular system by Leucippus and Democritus ; 
but afterwards it became, by means of Epicurus, as preva- 
lent among both Greeks and Romans as it ever was among 
the moderns of the eighteenth century. This is that proper 
materialism which strikes at once at the root of the idea of 
a God. 

It is in vain to suppose that these were mere speculations, 
and destitute of any influence on active life. The utter 
defectiveness of the popular faith of the Greeks, and of their 
philosophy, previous to the time of Socrates, will be most 
evident, if we direct our attention to the opinions which they 
embraced Avith regard to the immortality of the soul. That 
indistinct and gloomy world of shades, which was celebrated 
by the poets, and believed in by the common people, was at 
the best a mere poetical dream ; and, the moment reflection 
awakened, either sunk into doubt, or gave place to total in- 
credulity. In the mysteries, it is true, or secret societies, 
whose influence was so extensive both in Egypt and in 
Greece, some more accurate and stable notions, with regard 
to a future life, appear to have been preserved and inculca- 
ted ; but these, whatever they might be, were carefully con- 
fined to the small circle of the initiated. Both the earlier 
and later philosophers who sought to establish the doctrme 
of the immortality of the soul, had in general nothing far- 
ther in view than the indestructible nature of that intellec- 
tual principle of the universe, whereof, according to their 
belief, every human soul formed a part; they had no con- 
ception of any such thing as the continuance of personal ex- 



METEMPSYCHOSIS. 47 

.stence. That doctrine — the doctrine cf tho imrnoitahty of 
the soul, properly so called — was first started, and lirst ren- 
dered popular among their philosophers by Pythagoras. 
Even in his system, indeed, the truth was mingled with a 
considerable share of falsehood, for he embraced, in its full 
extent, the oriental doctrine of Metempsychosis, or the trans- 
migration of souls ; yet, as it is, he is, even in this respect, su- 
peiior to all the other old philosophers of Greece, and is 
well entitled to our reverence, both as a discoverer of truth, 
and as a benefactor of his nation. But his celebrated society 
(whose chief aim was certainly political power, and whose 
principles could not have been adopted without the total 
overthrow of the popular belief) was very soon dissolved; 
and after that time the state of philosoph}^ became daily more 
and more anarchical, down till the period of Socrates. 

The contradiction arid singularity of these opinions, in 
vented and defended as they were with the greatest acute 
ness, and given to the world with the highest advantages of 
diction ; the spirit of doubt and unbelief, which it is the ten- 
dency of such opinions to spread abroad : and the confusion 
of all ideas, and the relaxation of all principles which 
naturally follow from their adoption, were perhaps never 
displayed in all the fulness of their destructive influence, so 
manifestly as then. One great class of these ancient phi- 
losophers, however their opinions might differ on other 
matters, agreed in one thing. — that they all regarded nature 
only on the side of the mutability and variety of her pro- 
ductions. " Every thing," said they, " is perpetually chang- 
ing and revolving like the water of a river." So far, indeed, 
did they carry this principle, that they refused to believe in 
the existence of any thing steadfast and enduring ; they de- 
nied that there could be anything stable in being, anything 
certain in knowledge, any thing universally useful in morals, 
in other words, they treated as a fable the existence, not of 
God alone, but of speculative truth, and practical rectitude. 

Another party, who held fast by the tenet of an un- 
changeable unity in all things, fell into an altogether oppo- 
site opinion. They denied the possibility of any mutability 
in that which is, and were thus reduced to deny the real 
existence of the sensible world. These paradoxes they en- 
deavoured to render popular by the highest exertions of 



48 SCEPTICAL OPINIONS OF THL GREEKS. 

dialectic skill; and in so far, at least, they were successful 
in their attempt, for the discussions which took place ren- 
dered doubt and uncertainty even more common than be- 
fore. One of the first and greatest of these sophists com- 
menced his instructions expressly and distinctly with the 
assertion, — that there is no such thing as truth, either abso- 
lute or relative; that even if there were, it could not be 
vi.'ithin the reach of human knowledge, and that even if it 
were known, it would be altogether unprofitable. It would 
have been cruel, indeed, to deny this inquirer any private 
consolation which his doubt could afibrd him, if such had 
reall^^been the poor and unsatisfactory result of a diligent and 
candid investigation. But these sophists were not content 
to enjoy their doubt in privac)'- ; they had scholars and de- 
pendents in every district of Greece, and the education of 
the noble and cultivated classes of society was, for a season, 
entirely in their hands. Neither was the termination of 
their sceptical inquiries alwa5^s candidly stated ; for while 
some were honest enough to confess that they knew nothing, 
there was no want of other sophists who had the impu- 
dence and the quackery to say, that they knew all thmgs, 
and who boldly professed themselves to be masters of every 
art and of every science. It was, at all events, an easy mat- 
ter for them to bring young men to such a pitch of accom- 
plishment, that they could, by means of a few turnings and 
windings of sophistical argumentation, perplex and bewilder 
the understandings of others yet more inexperienced than 
themselves, — and believe themselves qualified to settle every 
thing by the rapid exercise of their own more cultivated 
genius, much better than had ever been done by the once 
reverenced, but now despised and insulted, wisdom of their 
forefathers. In these schools, it was not merely proposed 
by way of an exercise of ingenuity and acumen, to defend 
alternately two opposite opinions concerning the same sub- 
ject, and endeavour to lend either, according to pleasure, the 
semblance of truth; the regular object of sophistical am- 
bition was to defend on all occasions what they knew to be 
speculatively or practically wrong ; to make the worse ap- 
pear the better reason, not in scholastic disputation only, but 
in active life ; and to forge Aveapons of deceit for the destruc- 
tion of their fellow-citizens. With a bold contem])t of all 



DOCTRINES ^F SOCRATES. 49 

those moral principles, by which, according to them, the 
weak only allow themselves to be conducted and deceived, 
but which they^ in their wisdom, were pleased to consider 
as the silly prejudices of childishness and folly, others ex- 
pressly taught, that there is no virtue but that of cunning or 
cf power, and no right but the right of the stronger, and the 
pleasure of him who has the rule. In these schools, not 
only was ridicule perpetually cast on the popular belief, 
which, with all its manifold defectiveness, was still closely 
connected with many feelings of a noble and dignified mo- 
rality, which should have been carefully reverenced and 
preserved, so long as men had nothing better to be substi 
tuted in their room — ^not only did they heap together loose, 
vain, and despicable dogmas concerning the world and its 
first cause ; they denied, without hesitation, the very exist- 
ence of a Deity, and" annihilated within their bosoms all 
perception either of truth or of goodness. 

Through the prevailing influence of these opinions, the 
political purity of Grecian governments, which had long 
stood in jeopardy on the brink of an abyss of democratic 
lawlessness, was at last entirely overthrown : and sophistry 
had the merit of creating a spirit of corruption and debase- 
ment, which neither party-strife, nor protracted wars, nor 
foreign bribery, nor bloody revolutions, had been able to 
produce. 

In the midst of this universal atheism Socrates arose, and 
taught the existence of a God in a manner altogether prac- 
tical. He encountered the sophists on their own ground, 
and exposed to all the world the fallacy and nothingness of 
their opinions : he demonstrated to men, that virtue and 
goodness are not empty names, and convinced them, in spite 
of their prejudices, that in their own hearts are seated many 
pure and noble principles, derived at first from a superior 
being, and giving birth to perpetual aspirations afler some 
state of things more analogous to the dignity of their orig- 
inal. He laid hold of the best feelings of our nature, and 
linked them all with the cause of his philosophy. By these 
means Socrates became the second founder and restorer of 
a more noble system of thinking among the Greeks, at the 
expense of falling himself a sacrifice to his zeal, and to the 
truth. But his death is so remarkable an incident in the 
5 



50 POLITICAL INFLUE-NCE OF SOCRATES. 

history of mankind, that we may well pause for a mo- 
ment, and bestow on it some farther consideration. 

The solitary charge which was made against him, that 
he was guilty of teaching the existence of a new and un- 
known Godhead, and of despising the old and publicly re- 
cognized deities of the popular creed, was certainly so far 
founded in tivAh, and is most honourable to the fame of So- 
crates. Had the Socratic mode of thinking, which was in 
every respect new in Greece, ever gone beyond the circle 
of his own friends and disciples, and become the ruling one 
throughout the country, there can be no doubt that the 
whole system of private life among the ancients, and, at 
least, a great part of their popular belief, must have either 
been entirely changed, or undergone a very considerable 
modification. This must have been thoroughly felt by the 
narrow-minded bigots of the ancient faith, and is quite suffi 
cient to account for the deadly hatred which they all bore 
to Socrates, and the readiness with which they endeavoured 
to confound his great name with that of the profligate and 
pernicious sophists whose principal enemy he was. The 
charge, nevertheless, was in a great measure a mere pre- 
text, and the true ground of their hatred lay in the nature. 
not of the philosophical, but of the political tenets which 
Socrates maintained. 

In every situation of his life, Socrates had shewn himself 
to be an excellent citizen, and a zealous patriot; but his 
ouinions, or at least those of the greater part of his scholars, 
were openly inimical to democracy. The manner in which 
both Xenophon and Plato often praise — almost with the 
zeal and warmth of political partisans — the constitution of 
Sparta, and that of every state in whose institutions the aris- 
tocratical principle was predominant, could have appeared 
only in the light of a disgusting want of national feeling, to 
the bigoted aemocrats of their native city. Besides, all the 
enemies of democracy who proceeded from the school of 
Socrates, were far from bearing characters so noble and re- 
proacnless as Zenophon and Plato. Even Critias himself 
had been a disciple of Socrates, — Critias. one of the tyrants 
who ruled Athens by means of Spartan influence, and who 
indeed reduced their country to the state of a mere depen- 
dency on the government of Lacedsemon. And to this very 



ORIGIN OF THE SOCRATIC OPINIONS. 51 

Circumstance it is, that one ancient writer attributes, and 
with no small appearance of justice, the primary cause of 
the fate of Socrates. 

It is impossible to explain, in any satisfactory method, by 
what means Socrates reached those peculiar principles 
which he professed. With the more ancient doctrines of 
his countrymen of the Ionian school, he was well acquaint- 
ed ; but he seems to have considered them as, on the whole, 
inadequate and unsatisfying. On several remarkable occa 
sions of his life, he had, according to his own account, re- 
course to a D^MON, under whose guidance and tuition he 
professed himself uniformly to act ; but whether he meant 
something of a nature still more elevated, we have no means 
of deciding. It is equally out of our power to ascertain 
whether his private opinions pointed at a total overturn, or 
only at a partial modification, and more rational interpreta- 
tion of the principles of the popular belief He appears to 
have been well acquainted with all the doctrines inculcated 
in the mysterious societies of his day. It is indeed true, 
that he was far from being altogether divested of certain 
opinions and principles, which the philosophers of the 
eighteenth century do not hesitate to rank in the same class 
of infidelity, with the opinions of those all-knowing and all- 
doubting beings against whom Socrates was never weary 
of testifying. A single example will be enough to shew, 
with what unfairness and injustice this part of his character 
has been treated by some of these writers. One of their 
chief objections to him is founded on the reply which he 
made to a question put to him by one of his friends, on the 
evening of his death. " Is there nothing more which you 
wish us to do ?" said the friend. — " Nothing," answered 
Socrates, " except that I wish you to offer a cock to ^.scu- 
lapius." So then, say these modern critics, the last mo- 
ment of his life was spent in commanding a mark of respect 
to be paid to that superstition, with whose worthlessness he 
must have been perfectly acquainted; or if it was a jest 
which he uttered, surely jesting Avas ill-suited for a moment 
so solemn. Perhaps if they had looked a little deeper, they 
might have found a more rational explanation. By the 
constant practice of antiquity, when any person had recover- 
ed from an illness, ho offered a cock to ^sculapius. Now 



52 XENOPHON. 

when Socrates expressed his wish to make a similar sacri- 
fice, it is probable that he alluded to a notion which he him- 
self entertained, and which has been illustrated at great 
length by several of his disciples,-^the notion that the pre- 
sent life is given us only to prepare us for another ; or ac- 
cording to the expression of antiquity, that we may learn to 
die. Besides, Socrates has often expressly said that he con- 
sidered human life in general (and without doubt the state 
of the world in his day must have eminently tended to make 
him so consider it) in the light of an imprisonment of the 
spul, or of a malady under which the nobler spirit is con- 
demned to linger, until it be set free and purified by the 
healing touch of death. To terminate death by suicide was 
held by Socrates, if not the first, at least the most distinctly 
of all the ancient philosophers, as a thing not permitted— 
as a crime against God and against ourselves. He made 
no attempt to emancipate himself, by his own hand, from 
the confinement and the malady of life. Perhaps he did 
not imagine, however much he must have been aware of 
the true dignity both of his own character and of the cause 
of truth and virtue in which he suffered, that that character 
and that cause would in after ages derive new reverence 
and dignity from the example of resolution and steadfastness 
which he set before his friends and disciples in the manner 
of his death. 

In order to give a general view of the Greek philosophy, 
I have selected only a few points, out of the great mass of 
their opinions; it has been my chief object to select those 
principally which may be traced in works not didactic, but 
historical — ^which have exerted the greatest influence on 
the affairs of active and political life, and from that circum- 
stance are the most interesting as well as the most intelligi- 
ble. I now return to my short survey of their most cele- 
brated writers. 

Xenophon is entitled, by his beautiful style alone, to take 
his place by the side of the best authors of antiquity. As a 
writer of history, he surpasses Thucydides, in so far that his 
narrative is more light and clear ; and that the feeling with 
which his story is animated, is more simple and natural, Yet 
so much is he inferior both in depth and in dignity of reflec- 
tion, that, tender and elegant as he is, we almost universally 



CHARACTER OF THE CYROP^DIA. 53 

give the preference to the severe austerity of his more manly 
rival. As a philosophic writer, in his account of the con- 
versation of Socrates, he falls infinitely short of Plato, not 
only in profoundness of thought, but in richness of ilhistra 
tion, and in the arrangement of his materials. His political 
romance upon the life of Cyrus is deserving of much notice, 
because it is the only work of that kind which has come 
down to us from the ancients. The work is composed, in 
almost equal parts, of history, poetry, and ethics. But al- 
though each of the elements may be highly beautiful when 
taken by itself, the manner in which they are mingled to- 
gether in the Cyropaedia, appears to me, I must confess, 
very far from being a fit subject of imitation. 

Although both Xenophon and several other writers of 
the school of Socrates, were conspicuous examples of simpli- 
city and true beauty in composition, the sophistical rhetoric, 
nevertheless, continued to be almost universally prevalent 
among the Greeks. Isocrates may furnish us with abun- 
dant evidence of the wide extent to which that affected sys- 
tem of language and expression had been adopted by this 
ingenious and spiritual people : how they could endure to 
hear long harangues upon particular points or circum- 
stances, selected at the mere caprice of the speaker, and of- 
ten not only inapplicable, but utterly useless and unprofita- 
ble, to the total exclusion of every thing which might really 
bear upon the merits of the case : how, in short, they could 
make their reason altogether subservient to their pleasure, 
and listen to the discussion of matters the most important to 
themselves, whether as individuals or as a nation, with feel- 
ings which might have better suited a drama or a show, as 
if the only matter on which they were to decide, had been 
the relative merits of eloquence or wit, in those who were 
so vain as to address them. There is an unvarying appear- 
ance of artifice in the system of speaking and writing, which 
was at this period in ftishion. Every word is laboriously 
selected and arranged; every syllable is placed with refe- 
rence, not only to its significance, but to its sound ; every 
period is rounded with reiterated touches, and the whole is 
polished with indefatigable care. Yet this taste in compo- 
sition, this extreme refinement of language, may be of con- 
siderable use to us : for we are but too apt to fall into an 

5* 



54 PLATO AND ARISTOTLE. 

altogether opposite error, and to destroy or diminish the 
effect of our reasonings, by a very culpable inattention to 
the accuracy of our expression. The art which is employ- 
ed in writing should indeed be kept, as much as possible, 
out of view. The consideration of the labour which must 
have been employed, is sometimes distressing to us even in 
works of sculpture ; yet, in general, we allow ourselves to 
be delighted with an inanimate statue, long before we take 
time to reflect on the toil with which it has been formed. 
But the case is widely different here ; the appearance of 
labour in a piece of writing, is, instantly, and invariably, 
disagreeable. We know that a poem or an oration is not 
to be hewn out of stone, and we expect to see in it not barely 
a skilful application of art, but something free, lively, and 
having influence upon life. 

Plato and Aristotle, whom I consider in this place merely 
as writers, are specimens, at once, of the widest extent of 
Grecian knowledge, and of the greatest depth and dignity 
of reflection, which were ever attained by the Grecian mind. 
The first has treated of philosophy, in narratives and dia- 
logues, with all the fervour of an artist ; the method of the 
other is more scientific in the strictest, as well as in the 
widest sense of that Avord : he has not confined himself to 
philosophy alone, he has treated of natural science also, and 
natural history ; he has written on politics, on history, and 
on criticism, and, in fact, reduced to a system all the know- 
ledge of the Greeks. 

In the narrative and poetical passages of his dialogues, 
above all, on account of his language and skill in composi- 
tion, the general voice of his cotemporaries, as well as of 
posterity, has set Plato at the head of all the prose writers 
of antiquity. The most striking peculiarity of his style is 
its unrivalled variety ; for it adapts itself with equal ease to 
the artificial abstractions and hair-drawn distinctions, into 
vvhose labyrinths he pursues his enemies the sophists, and 
to the poetical, nay. the often dithyambic boldness, Tcith 
which he sets forth the rich fables and inventions of hii o\\T2 
philosophy. Considered merely as works of narration, 
Phsedon and the Republick are entitled to be clashed with 
the most illustrious specimens of that species of writiug to 
which Grecian genius has gireri birth. 



REVIVAL OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 55 

Both of these mighty intellects, Aristotle and Plato, have 
for two thousand years exerted a commanding- influence on 
the character of the human mind, both in Europe and in 
Asia. But to this I shall call your attention with more 
propriety in some other place. Aristotle is characterized, 
as a writer, by purity and elegance, which began, in his 
time, to be looked upon as the first qualities of style. Al- 
though Plato has always been considered as a perfect model 
both in the power and in the construction of his language, 
and, in general, as a specimen of the highest point of refine- 
ment to which Grecian, or more properly speaking, Attic 
genius, ever attained, yet there is no doubt that with regard 
to works of erudition, and the development and acuteness of 
criticism, but above all, with regard to every department of 
historical com.position, the influence of Aristotle has been 
more determinate, as well as more extensive, thni that of 
Plato. The immediate successor of Aristotle, I'heophras- 
tus, — the same whose descriptions of characters liave come 
down to US; — and all the early philosophers of the Platonic 
school, were men of universal refinement, and their writings 
were uniformly composed in a style at once elevated and 
beautiful. The philosophic sects which sprung up at a later 
period in Greece, appear to great disadvantage when com- 
pared, in this, respect, with their predecessors. The follow- 
ers of Epfcurus make use of a careless, dull, and drawling 
mode of composition, while the writings of the Stoics are 
still more ofTensive on account of the bombast pedantry, and 
technical barbarisms with Avhich they are loaded. The de- 
cline of the genius of the Greeks may be traced, through all 
its stages, in the corresponding debasement of their lan- 
guage. 

The revival of philosophy, which was effected by Socra- 
tes, was very far from extending its influence to the whole 
of the intellectual character of the Greeks. This happy 
revolution was confined to a few particular departments of 
thinking, and these were daily becoming more and more 
unconnected with the general spirit of that degraded people. 
On the poetry of Greece, to which we must now return, it 
exerted no influence whatever ; that depended, so .ong as it 
deserved the name of poetry, on the mythology, the popular 
belief, the traditional tales, and the arcient modes of life oi 



56 DECLINE OF THE TRAGIC ART. 

the country ; after the national manners had become relaxed 
and corrupted, it exhibited merely a faint echo of what it 
had formerly been, in the hands of those great and creative 
gemuses, who have already passed under our review. But 
although in this later poetry we can see only the reflection 
of its ancient splendour ; yet even the productions of this de- 
clining age are rich in particular beauties, and exhibit many 
glorious traces of that peculiar poetical spirit, which seems, 
in happier times, to have been almost inseparable from the 
physical temperament of the Greeks. 

The first traces of decline in the art of composing trage- 
dies, may be discovered, without difficulty, in the writings 
of Euripides ; rich as these are in pathetic representations, 
and in isolated, — above all, in lyrical beauties. The last 
among the great tragedians of antiquity, appears less perfect 
than his predecessors in many respects ; but his principal 
defect, certainly, consists in a want of unity and connection, 
between the different parts of which his works are composed, 
I have already mentioned that the tragedy of the ancients 
arose, by degrees, out of a peculiar national chorus, and fes- 
tival song of mythological import, which was usually per- 
formed in certain solemnities of the Greek religion. The 
chorus forms in this manner an inseparable part of the an- 
cient tragedy, whose composition is for the same reason, in 
its whole shape and substance, strictly allied to tyrical po- 
etry : a circumstance which has been very powerfully felt, 
by those poets, in particular, who have endeavoured to imi- 
tate, in modern times, the peculiarities of the Grecian drama. 
Perfect harmony and agreement between the choral songs, 
and the dramatic part — strictly so called, forms, in tragedies 
composed after these models, a requisite altogether indispen- 
sable. Both are in the most entire unison in the works of 
Sophocles: but in Euripides, the choral interludes assume a 
character widely different ; they seem to be introduced into 
his plays, merely by way of compliment to established cus- 
tom ; and, so far from being occupied with the events of the 
drama, are rendered, in general, vehicles for what has often 
no apparent connection with them. — the poet's ovni private 
opinions concerning the mythology and philosophy of his 
country. They abound, indeed, in lyrical beauties, which 
may be exquisite and delightful in themselves ; but these are 



MENANDER. 57 

perpetually intermingled with formal dooinaas, which the 
poet had gathered from the schools of the Sophists, and with 
long, pedantic, and ill-placed disquisitions, which seem to 
have no purpose in view, but an ostentatious display of his 
skill as a rhetorician. In consequence of this harmony be- 
ing disturbed, and the lyrical interludes no longer forming 
an essential part of the piece, the dialogue itself, which now 
composes the whole of the tragedy, appears at once poor 
and unsatisfactory. To remedy, in some measure, this de- 
fect, Euripides has recourse to a perplexing intricacy of 
plot, to perpetual surprises and recognitions, to double ca- 
tastrophes, and to wiredrawn intrigues, — which increase, in- 
deed, the amusement of the spectacle, but can ill be recon- 
ciled with the true nature and dignity of tragic poetry. 

The last Athenian poet, who represented human life in 
a manner new and peculiar to himself, was Menander — 
the inventor, or at least, the perfecter. of the new comedy, 
as it was called. His method of composition, although his 
own works have almost entirely perished, is in some mea- 
sure known to us, by means of the translations or imita- 
tions of the Roman poet Terence. The dramatic poetry 
of the Greeks, which had begun, in ^schylus, with the 
heroic greatness and marvels of fabulous antiquity, had now 
reached the last stage of its history ; it had been gradually 
descending from the lofty images of a poetical past., towards 
the more humble concerns of the actual 'present ; and it 
now terminated its career, with a spiritual and lively repre 
sentation of all the circumstances, characters, situations, and 
intrigues, which are to be met with in the every day life of 
undignified men. Whether the representation of common 
life, or, in other words, the popular comedy of Menander, 
belongs, properly speaking, to the class of poetry, was a 
question much agitated among the ancient critics. Many 
determine, it in the negative, because, according to their 
opinion, not only versification, but m^^hology, is necessary 
to the existence of poetry. But, according to our ideas of 
poetry, the lively representation of human life, although 
this should be altogether unaccompanied with the marvel- 
lous, or even with the elevated, can in no way be separated 
from the region of poetry. According to modern critics, 
the first and original end of all poetry, — if we consider it 



58 ESSENCE OF POETRY. 

as it is to have influence on men and on life, and, in one 
word, as it is to be national, — is, to preserve and embellish 
the peculiar traditions and recollections of the people ; and 
to preserve alive, in the memories of men, the magnanimity 
and greatness of ages that are gone by. The pecuhar 
sphere of this poetry is epic narrative, where there is the 
utmost scope for the introduction of the marvellous, and 
where the poet cannot move a step without the assistance oi 
m}^hology. But a second end of poetry is, to place before 
our eyes a clear and speaking picture of common life. This 
may certainly be done in many modes of writing ; but most 
powerfully, without doubt, in the drama. Poetry, how- 
ever, such as deserves the name, can never consist entirely 
in representations of external life ; it must always be inter- 
mingled with something of a higher nature, and have for 
its object the intellect and feeling of which that life is the 
symbol. Perhaps it might even be said that the essence 
of poetry, as directed to this second purpose, consists, in 
truth, in this, at first sight, unessential element of higher 
and more refined feeling, with which the whole substance 
of the composition is apparently diversified, but really in- 
spired. This feeling and mspiration form, indeed, a con- 
stituent part of all poetry; but in proportion as they come 
to be predominant qualities, the compositions in which they 
are embodied, approach nearer to the nature of lyrical 
poetry. 

The essence of all poetry may be said to consist in three 

things, INVENTION, EXPRESSION, INSPIRATION. In a 

great inventive genius, the other two elements, expression 
and inspiration can scarcely be absent. But without any 
creative or inventive power, properly so called, — most cer- 
tainly, without any admixture of the marvellous, — a work 
of intellect and language may, by the power of expression 
alone, w^hich it displays, or by the inspiration with which 
it is animated, fulfil the ends, and be entitled to the name, 
of poetry. 

Menander was the last original poet of Athens who repre- 
sented human life, and whose writings exerted their influ- 
ence on human afl^airs. If we consider his comedies as the 
conclusion of Attic literature, the whole period during which 



DEFECTS OF POETS. 59 

that literature existed, reckoning from the time of Solon, 
does not extend beyond three centuries. 

The poets who arose at an after period, when the lan- 
guage of Greece had become known over the greater part 
of the world, by means of the conquests of Alexander, and 
who attached themselves, for the most part, to the court ol 
the Egyptian Ptolemies, are only to be considered as glean- 
ers, who came after the rich harvest of Greek poetry had 
been already gathered in. These courtly literati, — the 
academicians and librarians of Alexandria, — have, how- 
ever, been of much service in the world, in consequence of 
the labour which they bestowed on preserving entire the 
purity and clearness of the Greek language ; as well as of 
the erudition and criticism which are embodied in their 
own Avorks. As poets, they have all the defects into which 
learned poets are apt to fall : their mode of expression is 
rarely unaffected, and very often altogether obscure. Those 
uf their number who attempted epic poetry, or, in general, 
who treated of subjects connected with mythology, are at 
least valuable on this account, that their works have mainly 
contributed towards enabling us, in modern times, to under- 
stand the allusions, and feel the force of the more ancient 
poets. It is, for instance, extremely fortunate for us, (es- 
pecially as the writings of so many older poets who handled 
the same fable have perished.) that the chivalric expedition 
of the Argonauts forms the subject of one of the most ele- 
gant of these later poets, — Apollonius. In consequence of 
the immense profusion of ancient poems which were at that 
time extant, it was perhaps easy for these Alexandrians to 
penetrate into the original meaning and connection of the 
mythological fictions, more deeply than had ever been con- 
sistent either with the views or the opportunities of the nar- 
rative poets of the flourishing era. Callimachus, in par- 
ticular, was conspicuous for the profound knowledge which 
he possessed of the ancient traditions of Greece ; mythology 
was the exclusive subject of his poetry, and he often treated 
it with the true fire of a poet. That he was by no means 
deficient m this, is indeed evident from the writings of the 
enthusiastic Propertius, who made him his model in the com- 
position of his elegies. It was at this period very common (o 
treat of mythological events in a formal manner, collecting 



60 ovid's metamorphoses. 

all the fictions of a similar class into the same Avork. Nothiiif^^ 
however, could be more vain ; for there is, in truth, no sort 
of connection between many of these inventions. They are 
often vailous editions of the same fable; and to arrange them 
in a consecutive order, could only be accomplished by means 
of such artificial omissions, and unnatural interlacings, as 
are to be met with in the Metamorphoses of Ovid. 

It has every where been the fate of poetry, in its decline, 
to be more and more taken away from its proper subjects, 
and applied to matters altogether incapable of poetical illus- 
tration. It requires no great acuteness to see, that scientific 
astronomy is a subject of this kind ; and that a dissertation 
on some particular department of botany, or a series ot 
medical lectures, although composed in verse, can never 
form a poem. It is evident that the whole body of this 
learned poetry which has come down to us from the Alex- 
andrian age, belongs to a false and utterly artificial class of 
compositions. The moderns should have been the more 
careful to avoid imitating these productions, that such sub- 
jects are even more difiicult to be handled in a poetical 
manner now, than they were in the time of the Greeks. 
In the first place, the Greeks of a more early period had 
applied didactic poetry to a great number of subjects entirely 
scientific in tbeir nature, not with the design of displaying 
their skill in the treatment of difficult and repulsive mate- 
rials, but for the real purpose of communicating knowledge ; 
at a time when prose writing was either entirely unknown, 
or in a state so unpolished as not to be a fit vehicle for gen- 
eral information, or not so easy for the authors themselves 
as the hexameter verse. Their scientific poetry was there- 
fore unaffected in its origin, and proceeded from the natural 
audacity of the Grecian intellect; a circumstance which 
must have been of great use to the artificial poets who treat- 
ed of scientific subjects at a later period. The my'hology 
of the Greeks, moreover, embraced the whole visible world 
within the circle of its bold personifications and delightful 
fables ; so that nothing, in truth, could be imagined, which 
was not connected in some manner, with these beautiful 
fictions, and thus placed within the proper province of an- 
cient poetry. Even in treating of a botanical or medical 
subject, iimumerable circumstances must have occurred to a 



THE IDYLLS OF THEOCRITUS. 61 

Grecian poet, which might give him an opportunity of bor- 
rowing poetical ilhistrations fi'om the world of fables ; and 
of introducing, without any appearance of stiffness or con- 
straint, those episodes which formed, in truth, the principal 
charm of his composition, but which must always be far- 
fetched and artificial in the writings of a modern. 

There is one species of poetry invented at this period, 
which is much more agreeable to our taste; because" it is 
not a mere display of art and imitation, but professes to set 
before us the peculiarities of a particular mode of life. I 
mean the bucolic and pastoral poetry ; the Idylls of Theo- 
critus, and other ancient writers of the same class. The 
country life certainly abounds in circumstances susceptible 
of poetical embellishment ; but, I confess, I can perceive no 
good reason, why it should be considered in an isolated 
manner, and abstracted from its due situation in that general 
picture of the world and of human life, which it is the pro- 
vince of poetry to unfold. Let us reflect for a moment on 
these passages in the heroic poems of antiquity, or m the 
chivalric romances of the moderns, which afford us glimpses 
of the simplicity and repose of rural manners, — their simpli- 
city appears still more innocent, and their repose still more 
peaceful, from the situation in which they are placed, — in the 
midst of the guilty tumult of wars, and the fierce passions of 
heroes. Here every thing appears in its true and natural 
connection ; and the poetry is as varied, as the world and 
the men which it professes to represent. The cutting off of 
rural life, and making the description of it a separate de- 
partment of writing, has led poets into perpetual tautologies 
and repetitions, and induced the more ambitious of them to 
have recourse to the most unnatural exaggerations. It is 
very singular that this species of writing should have always 
been cultivated and popular, only in ages of great social re- 
finement. The excess of refinement in the life of cities, has 
been the means of leading us back to nature and the coun- 
try. Most Idylls, indeed, betray their origin; and it is too often 
quite evident, that the shepherds and shepherdesses whom 
they represent, are, in fact, gentlemen and ladies in disguise. 
In Theocritus, without doubt, and in many of the other bu- 
colic poets of antiquity, we see some true rustics, and hear 
the natural language of unsophisticated shepherdesses. But, 

6 



62 DECLINE or POETRY. 

even in them, there is introduced so much elegance of lan- 
guage, and so much play of wit, that we are, every now 
and then, led to forget the rural scenes in which we are 
supposed to be placed, and to feel that we are still in the 
midst of the social refinements of the courts of Ptolomy or 
Augustus. In general, the Idylls were what their name 
expresses ; little poetical pictures, representations in minia- 
ture, sometimes of mythological subjects, at other times of 
matters in common life, but almost always amatory in their 
purpose and termination. Poetry had now become utterly 
degraded from her ancient dignity, split into unnatural di- 
visions, and deprived of the strength which she formerly 
possessed. The exhaustion of her powers became daily 
more and more manifest, in the diminutiveness of all her 
productions. She soon gave birth to nothing, but little tri- 
fling buds and flowerets. Pmis, conceits, and quibbles, 
were the fashion of the day. The age of poetry was gone, 
when that of antholoa^ies commenced. 



LECTURE III. 

RETROSPECT INFLUENCE OF THE GREEKS ON THE ROMANS SKETCH OF 

ROMAN LITERATURE 

After the Greeks had ceased to be a nation, their litera- 
ture became daily more and more unconnected with the 
affairs of active life. This was first and most conspicuously 
the fate of their philosophy, whose scientific principles 
were at all times in opposition to the popular faith, and 
whose lofty conceptions were now no longer in unison with 
the degraded feelings of that fallen nation. Historical in- 
forrftation became, indeed, much more extensive, and histo- 
rical literature received a more scientific form, and was 
applied to a greater variety of subjects than of old. But the 
vigour of ancient conceptions, and the free spirit of ancient 
inquiry, was for ever gone. The art of rhetoric increased 
daily in public opinion, and soon came to form almost the 
only subject of pubhc interest and amusement. If a fantas- 
tical and sophistical abuse of this art was not uncommon, 
even in the older and better times of Greece, it is easy to 
see to what extent that must now have prevailed, when her 
political independence was entirely lost, and the public 
taste, even in language, was utterly debased. Even poetry, 
with which the whole mental cultivation of Greece began, 
had descended from her original eminence, and become re- 
duced to the rank of an art, which men supposed might be 
acquired by means of rules and practice, like a handicraft. 
Even poetry could not be exempted from the influence of 
the degradation which surrounded her. The fate of sculp- 
ture was much more fortunate, perhaps because that art has 
less connection with the affairs of active life. The artist 
laboured on, in the seclusion of his workshop, to embody 
m marble the lofty conceptions of preceding ages, without 
regard to the political degradation or moral corruption of 
the time in which he lived. It is true that the relaxation 



64 ARCHIMEDP ^ND EUCLlP 

of manners gave rise to a c«^t.ain effeminacy and ^ei»--^«ion 
of taste even in sculpture; hut this evil was far fiom being 
so widely prevalent, as the corresponding corruptions in 
the sister arts. There is no doubt that very many of those 
works of ancient sculpture and architecture, whose beauty 
and perfection still appear to us unrivalled, were the produc- 
tion of the same age, which saw oratory and poetry reduced 
altogether to a state of decay and degradation. 

In those sciences which are the most unconnected with 
external life, and have little dependence on the political or 
private manners of a nation, the inventive genius of the 
Greeks still displayed itself in all its brilliancy and strength. 
In the mathematics, although they were destitute of many 
instruments which have been invented by modern ingenuity, 
and which now appear altogether indispensable, they made 
great progress both in geometry and astronomy, and the 
true system of the universe, which had, it is supposed, been 
guessed at, in a much earlier age, by the Pythagoreans, 
was now perfectly known and recognized by at least a great 
number of their philosophers. The wonder-working science 
and ingenuity of Archimedes were such, as to strike even 
the Romans with terror and amazement : and although they 
had no better system of numeration than the very defective 
one of letters, and were even ignorant of reckoning by deci- 
mals, the Greeks may boast of having produced in Euclid, 
a geometrical writer, whose works are esteemed of classical 
authority, even by the profoundest mathematicians of mo- 
dern times. Medicine, which had always been a favourite 
pursuit among the Greeks, now became one of their princi- 
pal occupations, and furnished them with free scope for the 
exercise of all their acuteness, inventiveness, and love of sys- 
tems. It was not only by means of their literature, and their 
eminence as rhetoricians and grammarians, but also, in no 
inconsiderable degree, by means of their skill as artists, 
mathematicians, and physicians, that the Greeks acquired 
their power over Roman intellect; a power which, however 
much the old Roman prejudices were at first against it, 
made daily progress after the two nations had been brought 
fairly into contact, and, in consequence of the capture of 
Tarentum, and the subjection of Magna Grecia and Sicily 
lo the Roman arms, soon became a matter of indispensable 



GRECIAN LITERATURE. 65 

necessity to the whole habits of the victorious people. 
Twice were the Greek rhetoricians and philosophers ba- 
nished from Rome by a decree of the senate ; and the elder 
Cato, that undistinguishing enemy of every thing that was 
Greek, could not even abide that Greek physicians should 
cure Roman maladies. He depicted these practitioners as 
impious sorcerers, who contradicted the course of nature, 
and restored dying men to life by means of unholy charms ; 
and advised his countrymen to remain stedfast, not only by 
their old Roman principles and manners, but also by the 
venerable unguents and balsams which had come down to 
them from the wisdom of their grandmothers. How neces- 
sary the Greek rhetoricians, and the teachers of the Greek 
arts and language, had become to the Romans, may be 
gathered from the speedy appearance of a second decree of 
banishment, which shows that very little attention had been 
paid to the injunctions of the first. Nor is it difficult to dis- 
cover the origin of all this. The Greek language was, at 
that time, universally diffused throughout the whole of the 
civilized world. The poems of Homer were read in the 
remotests districts of Asia : even the Indians were not in aM 
probability, entirely ignorant of Grecian literature; while, 
in the farthest extremity of the west, Carthaginian naviga- 
tors described their voyages of discovery, and Hannibal 
himself wrote the history of his wars, in the language of 
the Greeks. After the conquest of southern Italy and Sici- 
ly, whose language was almost entirely Greek, and still 
more after they had by degrees acquired the dominion of 
Macedonia and Achaia, a knowledge of this language must 
have become every day more and more necessary to the 
Romans, especially on account of the many historical works 
which the Greeks possessed, respecting all those nations 
and countries, with which the extended circle of their poli- 
tical operations had now brought that ambitious people into 
contact. The Greek language was adopted even by the 
Romans, who attempted, about that period, to write the his- 
tory of their own nation; and the Greek Polybius, who 
came to Rome as a hostage in the course of the Achaian 
wais was the first who described to this great people the 
state of the world, and the political relations of its inhabi- 
tants, in a work which, at least in a political point of view 



56 LITERATURE OF THE ROMANS. 

must always be considered as classical even by the latest 
posterity. Livius Andronicus, a Greek taken captive at 
Tarentum, who was acquainted with the Latin language, 
first enabled the Romans to hear and read the Odyssey in 
the rude disguise of their native tongue; and afterwards, by 
means of his translations, introduced them to some acquaint- 
ance with the pleasures of theatrical exhibitions, and the 
riches of the Grecian drama. But it is not to be denied 
that the principal inducement, which led first the Romans 
of high rank, and afterwards the whole of the nation, to ad- 
mire and imitate the institutions and lang-uao-e of the Greeks, 
was unquestionably this, — a knowledge of the language 
and manners of the Greeks was a necessary step to an ac- 
quaintance with their rhetoric. Eloquence, even in Rome, 
exerted over political events an influence always powerful, 
not unfrequently imperative and conclusive : and, in the 
more troublesome times which followed the period of Grac- 
chus, the popular passion became every day more violent, 
for all the instruments of this art, — in spite of the remon- 
strances of some sturdy patriots, who condemned it as a sys- 
tem of sophistry, not only dangerous to the welfare of the 
state, but utterly inimical to the progress and soundness of 
the human intellect. 

The later literature of the Romans is such as to keep us 
perpetually in mind of its origin ; and few are now disposed 
to question the truth of the common assertion, — that the Ro- 
man writers are in general mere imitators of the Greeks. 

h IS absolutely necessary that those nations who make 
their appearance at a later period of the history of the world, 
as well as of the general development of human intellect, 
should derive a great part of their mental cultivation, as a 
legacy from the polished nations of the more early times ; 
and this implies, in itself, no reproach. It were preposte- 
rous to introduce into literature the petty ideas of a mercan- 
tile town ; and to insist that the writers of each nation should 
labour to make their productions as different as possible 
from those of their neighbours. To make use of the culti- 
vation of another people is far from disgraceful: it is only 
necessary that we preserve our substantial individuality as a 
•"tation, that we do not part with the original peculiarities of 
our language and mode of thinking, nor sacrifice what is 



ROMAN LITERATURE. 67 

most our o\vn, out of an extravagant admiration for what 
belongs originally to others. I&iowledge is in itself the 
common property of all nations ; and the genius of a poet 
or of a philosopher, who aspires to exert a commanding in- 
fluence on his fellow-countrymen, is exalted and enriched 
by a retro5;pect to the high points of perfection, — in art, in 
reflection, in spirit, and in language, — ^to which the men of 
former ages and other countries have attained. 

That imitation alone is lifeless which aims not to extend 
the field, and increase the power of native genius, but 
merely to appropriate peculiar species of writing used by a 
foreign nation, — an attempt which can seldom be cro\\iied 
with entire success ; and to reach, by elaborate artifice, beau- 
ties, whose very existence depends, in a great measure, on 
their being altogether .nat-ural and unsought. 

The literature of Rome has fallen in some measure into 
both of these errors. Her writers both neglected the an- 
cient and national traditions of their own country, and be- 
stowed much unprofitable labour on the imitation of foreign 
modes of wj'iting, which, as soon as they are transplanted 
from their native soil, for the most part assume the appear- 
ance of unproductiveness, coldness, and death, or, at best, 
protract a lingering and ineflicient life, like the sickly ex- 
otics of a green-house. 

There is, nevertheless, a character peculiar to the writers 
of Rome, by means of which, in spite of the servility with 
which they have, in general, imitated their models and ori- 
ginals in the literature of Greece, their works have obtained 
an appearance of dignity and worthiness, that are altogether 
their own. This, indeed, belongs not so much to themselves 
as to their nation, — to Rome, the great point of union be- 
tween the ancient and the modern Avorld. 

The artist who excels in sculpture or painting, must be 
altogether animated and inspired with one great and in- 
dwelling idea, which occupies his whole soul; an idea for 
which he forgets all others, in which alone he lives, and to 
which all his works are entirely subservient. His master- 
pieces are mere attempts to body forth, and render visible to 
others, the greatness of those conceptions, which have their 
residence Avithin the depths of his o\\ti mind. In like man 
aer, every true poet, and every great inventive author, must 



68 INFLUENCE OF GREEK LITERATURE. 

be filled \>ith some idea peculiarly his own, and all-power 
fill over Ids soul — which is the central point and focus oi 
his intellect — to which every thing else is subordinate — and 
of which the writings, wherein he embodies his spirit, are 
but the ministers, interpreters, and tools. Here it is that the 
superiority of Greeks over Romans is manifest and trium- 
phant. Think only of the great poets of the glorious time 
of Greece — of ^schylus, Pindar, Sophocles ; or of the pat- 
riotic poet of the populace, Aristophanes — or of the orator 
Demosthenes — or of the two first of historians, Herodotus 
and Thucydides — -or those profoundest of thinkers, Aris- 
totle and Plato. In each of these great authors we shall 
find a distinct and peculiar spirit of reflection, a peculiar 
manner of narration, a peculiar form of composition ; even 
with regard to style and language, the first time we open 
the pages of one of these master-spirits, we feel as if we were 
transplanted into an unknown world. Thus rich and mani- 
fold Avas the genius of the Greeks ; but we should seek in 
vain for so great a spirit of originality among the Roman 
writers. Yet there is something in them which atones for 
this defect ; they also have their high, their great idea : not 
that the individuals are so favoured ; but the possession is 
common to them all ; it is the idea of Rome : of Rome, so 
Avonderful in her ancient manners and laws — so great even 
in her errors and her crimes : of Rome, «o eternally re- 
markable for the unrivalled dominion with which she ruled 
the world. It is this spirit which breathes from the lips of 
every Roman, and which stamps a character of independent 
dignity and grandeur even on his most slavish imitations of 
the writings of the Greeks. 

The greatness and the political activity of the state, on 
the one hand, and the power and audacious exertion of in- 
tellect in the individuals of which the state is composed, on 
the other, are, by the nature of things, in some measure op- 
posed to each other ; although it be unquestionably both a 
natural and a proper feeling, which makes every good citi- 
zen wish equal success to political energy and individual 
genius, in the country to which he belongs. 

As affairs are constituted, this much is certain, that so 
manifold and various a development of human faculties as 
that which took place in Greece, can never occur in any 



GREEK AND ROMAN LITERATURE COMPARED. 69 

State where the principle of patriotism has attained a certain 
point of predominance ; where men have no thoughts and no 
feelings which are not occupied and penetrated with the 
greatness and the glory of their country. It was necessary 
that Athens should have been as free as she really was, — 
sufficiently free to allow a large portion of her citizens to 
abstract themselves altogether from political concerns, Avith- 
out any danger to their political privileges, — before she could 
have displayed, as she has done, in every department of in- 
tellect and art, the unrivalled energies of the Grecian genius, 
Sparta was the only state in Greece, constituted as such, at 
once virtuously and powerfully ; the only state whose tri- 
umphs were not confined to temporary dominion and suc- 
cess, but extended to a strong, a sound, and an enduring po- 
litical existence. These advantages were not to be gained 
without some sacrifice : and Sparta chose to obtain them by 
adopting a system of municipal institutions, the tendency of 
which was to confine the whole thoughts and manners of 
her citizens within a particular range. She was content to 
be without philosophers and poets, provided she could only 
have sagacious statesmen and intrepid warriors: and he 
who, had he been born in Athens, might have become a 
Sophocles or a Plato, envied, at Lacedeemon, no other names 
but those of Lycurgus and Leonidas. 

But I must illustrate the truth of my position respecting 
the Roman authors, by a recurrence to individual examples. 
Is it not clear, that in Ceesar, or even in Cicero, (consider- 
ing both of these merely as writers.) there is a something 
which sets them at once far before the rhetoricians, gram- 
marians, philosophers, and sophists, whose pupils they evi- 
dently are in all that regards language, eloquence, and mode 
of thinking, and to whom they are so often and so obviously 
inferior in the acuteness. and the scientific knowledge, which 
it is one principal object of their writings to display. Every 
one must feel that here, as in all the works of the great 
Roman writers, there breathes a spirit very difTerent from 
that of the corrupted sophistry of the later age of Greece. 
This is not the genius, or the peculiar spirit of the authors 
themselves ; it is the idea of Rome, the idea of the solitary 
grandeur of their country, w^hich, although its operations be 
very different, alike animates them all ; and, like the unseen 



70 GREEK MANNERS AND GREEK AUTHORS. 

spirit of life, pervades and ilJuminates the whole body of 
their writings. 

That the Romans learned or borrowed every thing from 
the Greeks, and had, in reality, nothing which was pecu- 
liarly and from antiquity their own, is very far from the 
truth. We should come nearer the mark, if we should say, 
that, through the overmastering influence of Greek manners 
and Greek authors, the Romans of a later period were in- 
duced to forget what they ought most carefully to have 
cherished and preserved, — the old heroic tales and national 
poems of their ancestors. These surely were the produc- 
tions of an age far preceding any knowledge or imitation of 
Grecian models, and yet, so much have they been despised, 
that we can scarcely perceive any trace of their existence, 
except in certain relics, which have been transferred from 
true poetry to the half-fabulous histories of the infant ages 
of Rome. In many passages of those Roman writers, who 
were the best acquainted with the ancient usages and man- 
ners of their country, allusion is made to the existence of 
certain old songs, whose purpose was to celebrate the illus- 
trious actions of their early ancestors, and which had com- 
monly been sung at their religious festivals, as well as at 
the private entertainments of the Roman nobles. There, 
then, were heroic poems, wherein the patriotic feelings and 
the poetical genius of the Romans found means to express 
themselves, long before the Romans became the pupils of 
the Greeks, and acquired from them, along with that so- 
phistical eloquence of which I have already said so much, 
a style of poetry more regular and learned, and, in every 
thing which respects prosody and language, in comparatively 
more polished than that which they had of old possessed. 
If it should be asked what were the subjects of these old 
Roman poems ? the Roman histories, I conceive, may easily 
furnish us with an answer. Not only the fabulous birth 
and fate of Romulus, and the rape of the Sabine women, 
but also the most poetical combat of the Horatii and Curi- 
atii — the pride of Tarquin — the misfortune and death of 
Lucretia, with their bloody revenge, and the establishment 
of liberty by the elder Brutus — the wonderful war of Pcr- 
8enna, and the steadfastness of Scoevola, — ^the banishment of 
Coriolanus, the war which he kindled against his country 



NElBUHlt's H1ST0K\, 71 

— the subsequent struggle of his feelinc:-?. and the final tri- 
umph of his patriotism at the all-powerful intercession of 
his mother: these and the like circumstances, if they be ex- 
amined from the proper point of view, cannot fail to be con- 
sidered as the rehcs and fragments of the ancient heroic 
traditions and heroic poems of the Romans. As such they 
are of great value ; and that cannot be diminished, by any 
difficulties which the mere historical student may experi- 
ence, in reconciling the discrepancies of narrative, or ex- 
plaining the obscurities of allusion, with which, in their 
present condition, they abound. That many things which, 
of right, belong to these ancient poems, still exist under the 
disguise of an historical clothing ; that in Livy, above all, 
the spirit and power of these old songs is often the predomi- 
nant inspiration of the narrative, has, indeed, very fi-equently 
been conjectured. But it was reserved for a learnt d in- 
quirer of our own time, Neibuhr, to take these compositions 
to pieces, and to detect, with a felicity which has seldom 
been equalled' the modem inventions and additions by which 
incidents, in themselves unconnected, have been artificially 
conjoined. This critic has, indeed, taken away from the 
Roman history: but we have gained through his means 
a more accurate acquaintance wdth the nature of the an- 
cient Roman traditions which we possess. Before the 
rythm and artifices of Greek versification had weaned Ro- 
man ears from their affection for the simple sounds of their 
own songs, these historical or heroic adventures were sung 
in a loose sort of verses, which the ancient Italians called 
Saturnalian ; and which, excepting that they had no rhjTne, 
bore a strong resemblance to those lawless Alexandrines^ as 
they were called, of which almost all the nations of Europe 
made use, during the period of the middle ages. 

These heroic ballads of the more early Romans. — if we 
may judge of their general import from the materials which 
they have furnished to the Roman historians. — seem to have 
aimed at the narration of no incident which did not belong 
to their country, and at the expression of no feelings but 
such as were purely patriotic. We perceive in them, in- 
deed, no inconsiderable admixture of love for the marvellous ; 
but even that propensity seems to have been exclusively 
national in its chai'acter and spirit ; for the Roman fablers 



T2 ERA OF ROMAN HISTORY. 

ippear to have indulged themselves in the creation of no 
wonders, which might not redound, in some measure, to the 
honour of their ancestors. It is much to be regretted that 
the manifold witchery of the Odyssey, and the perfect har- 
mony of the ever various hexameter, should have made so 
entire a conquest of the ears and souls of the Romans, as to 
leave no room for a more affectionate preservation of these 
ancient poems of their country. 

There is, however, another reason which tended, in no 
inconsiderable degree, to render the Romans indifferent, it 
not averse, to their heroic legends ; and which must have 
mainly contributed to\vards bringing these into a state of 
neglect, the consequences of which have been, that, with the 
exception of those fragments w^hich have been imperfectly 
preserved in the shape of a half-fabulous and ill-connected 
chronicle, they have been utterly lost, not only to the history 
of Rome, but to that of the world itself, of w^ich Rome be- 
came afterwards the mistress. The last heroic personage of 
the old Roman history is Camillus, who delivered Rome 
from her invaders the Gauls. He falls within the period 
both of tradition and of poetry, and there can be no doubt 
that his fame w^as transmitted in songs, to the posterity of 
those whom he had set free. With the expulsion of the 
Gauls the historical period of Rome begins. During the 
time when they ravaged the country, the ancient monuments 
must in a great measure have perished; for every thing 
previous to this epoch is dark and doubtful, even that which 
is fomided on fact, is perpetually intermingled with a texture 
of fabulous inventions. From this time, moreover, the true 
period of Roman greatness commences. In a historical 
point of view, it is even the proper period of Roman hero- 
ism : and to it w'e may probably refer the composition of 
those old heroic songs, of which Cato and Cicero make men- 
tion, and which Ennius and even hiYj had perpetually before 
their eyes. 

Now the older traditions concerning the kings and heroes 
of the infant city, the establishment of its republican govern- 
ment, and the vicissitudes of its early fate, were near enough 
to this age of Roman valour and virtue, to be still felt with 
all that powder and pressure, w^hich are necessary to make 
such events the fit subjects of national poetry. But at a 



INTRODUCTIOX OF GREEK LITERATURE. i •) 

period somewhat later, the case Avas widely different, vifler 
the subjection of Tarentnm, Italy, Sicily, Macedonia, Car- 
thag-e. Spain, and Achaia, there could have been compara- 
tively little sjTnpathy between the petty Rome of antiquity, 
of her that made war against the Sabines, or beleaguered 
the \own of Veil for as many j^ears as Agamemnon did Troy, 
and mighty Rome pressing on to the dominion of the world, 
with an irresistible rapidity, and an unwavering confidence 
in the ascendancy of her victorious star. The Greeks were, 
even from the remotest times, a numerous nation, divided into 
many tribes, and having possession of extensive territories. 
But the original patrimony of the Romans consisted of a 
single village, and they had formed themselves, first, into 
an independent, and afterwards into a conquering people, 
entirely by the incorporation of foreigners, who took little 
interest in the traditions of their earliest achievements. 

It was, therefore, an inevitable consequence of the nature of 
the things themselves, and of the progress of events, that thf^se 
ancient patriotic traditions and poems should gradually sink 
into neglect; at least that they should never form the ground- 
work of a polished and developed literature ; and, in short, 
that fhe Romans should adopt in their stead the thoughts, 
the recollections, and the poetry of the Greeks. The blame 
of this should by no means be exclusively attached to Enni- 
us ; although it be true that the acute historical critic, whom 
I have cited above, has accused that writer of maliciously 
calumniating and depressing these ancient compositions, in 
order that he himself might be considered as the author and 
founder of Roman poetry. It is however certain that En- 
nius boasted, with much openness, that he was animated with 
three different souls, in allusion to his knowledge of three 
languages — Greek, Latin, and Oscian, or ancient Italian. 
And there is no improbability in the supposition that a man 
who did so was not a little proud of his success, (imperfect 
as that really was.) in transferring the music of the Greek 
hexameter into another tongue. The greatest of poets are 
not always exempt from this sort of vanity; and often attach 
a very undue weight to some merel}- external circumstances 
in their composition. They judge too much of the value of 
what they have done, by the labour which it has cost them 
to do it; and think little, on the other hand, of those quali- 

7 



74 THE DRAMA OF THE ROMANS 

ties which form their real excellence. — nay, are sometimes 
almost unconscious of the existence of that internal inspira- 
ration, which animates their genius and awakens our sym- 
pathy. Ennius, for instance, appears to have thouofht more 
about his versification than his poetry ; and to have too much 
despised the old poets of his native country, merely because 
they had not, like himself, made use of the rich and various 
measures of the Greeks. Yet there is no doubt that Ennius 
was a true poet. In many of his verses which have been 
preserved by succeeding writers, there breathes the noble 
spirit of genuine emotion. But even if every fragment of 
his writings had perished, the admiration with which he 
was regarded by Lucretius, would have been sufficient to 
place him high in our esteem-. That illustrious poet, it is 
well knoA\Ti, considered Ennius as his master and his model. 
His genius was of a kindred order ; and he bore to him a 
strong resemblance, both in the turn of his thoughts and the 
flow of his diction. 

From this time the imitation of the Greek writers pro- 
ceeded rapidly, although not with uniform success. Of all 
the compositions of the Greeks, their histories and« their 
orations were most interesting to the Romans, and most 
akin to their political habits. They were, consequent^, 
most fortunate in their imitations of these modes of writing. 
The Greek philosophy, on the other hand, was always 
foreign to them : and the success of their imitations of Greek 
poetry was very different in the different departments of the 
art. 

In the drama the Romans were perpetually making at- 
tempts, from the time of Ennius do^\^lward. In truth, how- 
ever, they have left nothing in that department of poetry ex- 
cept translations from the Greek, more or less exact, but 
never executed with sufficient spirit to entitle them even to 
the less servile name of imitations. The lost tragedians, 
Pacuvius and Attius, were mere translators ; and the same 
thing may be said of the two comic poets Plautus and 
Terence, whose writings are in our hands. That old do- 
mestic species of bantering comedy, which was knoA^-n by 
the Oscian name of fahula attellana^ was not, however, en- 
tirely laid aside. It still preserved its place as an amuse^^ 
ment of -society in the merry meetings of the nobles; who, 



THE GREEK TRAGEDIANS. 75 

in the midst of all their foreign refinements, were willing-. 
now and then, to revive in this way their recollections of the 
national sports and diversions of their Italian ancestry 
With the exception of this low species of buffoon writing, 
the Romans never possessed any thing which deserved to be 
called a dramatic literature of their own. With regard to 
their translations from the Greek tragedians, one principal 
cause of their stiffness and general want of success was this, 
■ — that the mythology, which forms the essence of these 
compositions, was in fact foreign to the Roman people. It 
is very true that the general outline of the Roman mytho- 
logy was originally copied from that of the Greeks, but the 
individual parts of the two fabrics were altogether different 
and local. Iphigenia and Orestes were always more or less 
foreigners to a Roman audience; and the whole drama in 
which these and similar personages figured, never attained 
in Rome any more heahhy state of existence, than that Oi 
an exotic in a green-house, which is only preserved from 
death by the daily application of artificial beat and unsatis- 
fying labour. The names of the individual tragedies, which 
were supposed to be the best of their kind in the time of 
Augustus, may suffice to shew us hoAV narrow was the circle 
m which the JRoman dramatists moved, and how soon their 
tragic art has reached the termination of its progress. The 
same thing may easily be gathered from a consideration of 
those orations in dramatic form which are commonly ascribed 
to Seneca. In like manner the representation of the foreign 
manners of Athens, which perpetually occupied the Roman 
comedy, must have appeared to Roman spectators at once 
cold and uninteresting. It is no difficult matter to perceive 
the reasons, why the witchery of pantomime and dance 
soon supplanted at Rome every other species of dramatic 
spectacle. 

There is one of a still more serious nature upon which I 
have not yet touched. The Roman people had by degrees 
become accustomed to take a barbarous delight in the most 
wanton displays of human violence and brutal cruelty. 
Hundreds of lions and elephants fought and bled before 
their eyes ; even Roman ladies could look on, and see 
crowds of hireling gladiators wasting energy, valour, and 
life, on the guilty arena of a circus. It is but too evident 



76 CONDITION OF THE ROMAN DRAMA. 

that they who could take pleasure in spectacles such as 
these, must very soon have lost all that tenderness of inward 
feeling, and all that s^Tnpathy for inward suffering, without 
which none can perceive the force and beauty of a tragic 
drama. Still, however, it may unquestionably appear a 
strange thing, that, since the Romans did make many at- 
tempts at the composition of tragedies, they should never 
have chosen their subjects from the ancient history or tradi- 
tions of their country ; more particularly when we consider 
that the tragedians of modern times have borrowed, from 
these very sources, many subjects of a highly poetical na- 
ture, and, at the same time, far from being misusceptible of 
dramatic representation, — such as the combat of the Horatii, 
the firmness of Brutus, the internal conflict and changed 
spirit of Coriolanus, restoring in this way to poetry what 
was originally among the most rightful of her possessions. 
To find a satisfactory solution of this difficulty, we must 
examine into the nature of these neglected themes. The 
patriotic feelings embodied in these traditions, were too much 
akin to the feelings of every Eoman audience, to admit of 
being brought forward upon a stage. The story of Corio- 
lanus may serve as an example. How could a Roman poet 
have dared to represent this haughty patrician in the full 
strength of his disdain and scom of plebeians, at the time 
Avhen the Gracchi were straining every nerve to set the ple- 
beians free from the authority of the nobles ? What effect 
must it have had. to introduce the banished Coriolanus upon 
a Roman stage, reproaching, in his merited indignation, 
with bitter words and dear bought moclvery. the jealous 
levity of his countr;y'Tnen. at a time when the noblest and the 
most free-spirited of the last Romans. Sertorius. from his 
place of exile, among the unsubdued tribes of Spain and 
Lusitania, meditated more complete revenge against similar 
m gratitude, and was laying plans for the destruction of the 
old. and the foundation of a second Rome ? Or how could 
a Roman audience have endured to see Coriolanus repre- 
sented as approaching Rome at the head of an hostile and 
victorious army, at the time when Sydla was in reality at 
open war ^^^th his country ; or even at a somewhat later 
period, when the principal events of his history must have 
still been familiar and present to the recollection of his 



THE GENIUS OF LUCRETIUS. 77 

conntrymen? Not in these instances alone, but in the 
whole body of the early traditions and history of Rome, tJie 
conflict between patricians and plebeians occupied so pre- 
eminent a place, as to render Roman subjects incapable of 
theatrical representation during the .times of the republic. 
Much more does this apply to the age of Augustus and his 
successors, when, indeed, Brutus and the ancient consular 
heroes could not have failed to be the most unwelcome of all 
personages. We may find sufficient illustrations of these 
remarks in the history of the modern drama. For, although 
Shakespeare has not hesitated to represent the civil wars of 
York and Lancaster on the English stage, we must observe, 
that, before he did so, these wars had entirely terminated ; 
and the recurrence of similar events could not easily have 
been foreseen by one living in the pacific times of James. 
With regard to our German drama, it is true that our tragic 
poets have chosen many of these most interesting subjects 
from our civil tumults — particularly from the thirty years' 
war ; but even here the case is very different from what it 
would have been among the Romans. The Germans are 
indeed countrymen, but they are not all subjects of the same 
state. And yet with us, the poets who handle such topics at 
much length, have a very difficult task to perform ; they 
have need of much delicacy to avoid wounding or perhaps 
reviving the feelings of parties, and thus destroying the 
proper impression which their poetry should make. 

Such are the reasons why the Romans had no national 
tragedies ; and why, in general, they had no such thing as 
a theatre of their o^vn. 

Among their poets who applied then.selves to other de- 
partments of the art, Lucretius stands by himself in Roman 
literature, whether we consider the subjects, or the spirit of 
his writings. Perhaps, indeed, he may give us something 
like an idea of the style and manner of the more ancient 
Roman poets. By the later Romans he was little thought 
of; they neither felt his beauties, nor appreciated his genius. 
His work concerning the nature of things^ belongs to that 
species of writing, which arose among the Greeks out of 
particular circumstances m their history, and which, among 
them only, was a national mode of composition — the didac- 
tic poetry of science. The philosophy wlaich he has cho- 
7* 



78 REMARKS ON POETIC COMPO'SITION 

sen to illustrate, was the worst which he could have select( d 
either as a Roman or as a poet. The system of Epicurus, 
I mean, which annihilates all belief and all lofty feeling ; 
which, m a scientific point of view, is connected with the 
most absurd of hypotheses ; which, in its influence on life, 
if not immoral, is at least selfish and unpatriotic, and which, 
above all, is the deadly enemy of every thing like fancy 
and poetry. It is true that Lucretius has mastered all these 
difficulties ; but who can see without regret a spirit so no- 
ble, as that which is every where apparent in his writings, 
devoted and enslaved to a destructive system of Grecian 
sophistry? In inspiration, and in sublimity, he is the first 
of Roman poets ; as a painter and worshipper of nature, he 
is the first of all the poets of antiquity whose writings have 
come down to us. With regard to the species of writing 
which he adopted, and in general with regard to the place 
which nature should occupy in poetical compositions, I 
shall now make a few general remarks. 

And in the first place, I think it will be admitted on all 
hands that poetry may choose the subject of her descriptions 
as well as the source of her inspiration, not only in human 
beings themselves, but with equal propriety in the external 
nature with which they are surrounded. In the poetry of 
nature, as in the poetry of man, there is room for a threefola 
distinction. The poetry of man may be, first, a clear mir 
ror of actual life and the present ; or, secondly, an embody 
ing of the recollections of a marvellous antiquity, and de 
parted age of heroic actions and adventures ; or, thirdly, if 
it be in the hands of a poet who desires rather to inspire 
than to describe, it may consist in a stirring up and awaken- 
ing of the hidden depths of human feeling. All this might 
be equally well said of the poetry of nature. For this poetry 
may, in the first place, give us a picture of the external ap- 
pearances of things ; and for this purpose introduce all that is 
quickening and enlivening in spring, all that is generous or 
powerful in animals, all that is beautiful and lovely in flow- 
ers and trees ; all, in short, that seems to th.3 eyes of men 
sublime or pleasing, whether in the heavens, under which 
they move, or on the earth upon which they tread. The 
only difficulty here is to avoid exuberance: for descriptions 
which are too full, even although they should be perfectly 



THE SUBJECTS OF POETRY. 79 

just, are distressing- to us, and destroy their own effect ; 
while solitary flowers from the fulness of nature, inserted at 
ttuie intervals mto the web of poetry, lend a charm to the 
whole texture, which no other ornament can rival. But 
nature also, in the second place, had her wonderful past ; she 
also has had her times of gigantic dimension and unfettered 
energy, which correspond w4th the heroic ages in the his- 
tory of man. To be convinced of this, we need only at- 
tempt to analyze the feelings with which we ourselves sur- 
vey nature in her wildest forms, — the aw^e with which we 
are struck w^hen we enter into some savage wilderness, 
where rocks, and hills, and w^oods, and waters, are all min- 
gled together in the shapeless majesty of chaos. Or we 
may reflect for a moment on the tenor of all ancient tradi 
tions: they abound in the display of the great physical ca- 
tastrophes of the past. All the more unusual and terrific 
appearances of nature — storms, tempests, floods ind earth- 
quakes, seem to be scattered remnants of this anci' nt state of 
things, and carry us back for a moment into the bosom of 
this mysterious past. These are among the most proper 
and the most dignified subjects of poetry, and of them, ac- 
cordingly, the great painter of nature, Lucretius, has made 
frequent use. But, here, also the poet must be contented 
with the general representation of a state of things more 
wild and free, — a past age of greater and more terrific ope- 
rations. He must be contented with the possession of a 
theatre on which nature may perform her most awful tra- 
gedies. But he must not scrutinize with too close an eye the 
mysteries of her working. It is no part of his province to 
explain the scientific causes of these great phenomena. If 
he should begin to teach us hoio the mountains were fram- 
ed — it makes no difference whether he adopts the theor}^ of 
fire or of water — he has overstepped his limits ; he has en- 
tered upon a topic as remote from his art, as that system of 
atoms, which even the unrivalled imagination of Lucretius 
could not represent in a manner thoroughly poetical. But 
there is yet a third mode in which the poet may make use 
of nature. Between the poet and nature, no less than be-' 
tween the poet and man, there is the sympathy of feeling. 
Not only in the song of the nightingale, or in those melo- 
dies to which all men listen, but even in the roar of the 



80 THE ORATIONS OF CICERO. 

the stream, and the rushing of the forest, the poet think? 
that he hears a kindred voice of sorrow or of gladness : as 
if spirits and feelings like our o\a'ti were calling to us from 
afar, or seeking to sympathize and communicate with us 
from the utmost nearness to which their nature will allow 
them to approach us. It is for the purpose of listening to 
these tones, and of holding mysterious converse with the 
soul of nature, that every great poet is a lover of solitude. 
The question of the philosophic inquirer, whether nature, 
be, in truth, so animated, or whether all this be not mere 
self-deception, is one of no avail. It is sufficient that this 
feeling and this aspiration are things which exist, more or less, 
in the fancy and the breast, not of poets only, but of all men. 
In the writings of the Greeks and Romans, we have only a 
few traces of this sort of poetry ; they are more abundant in 
those of our northern ancestry, because these lived less in 
cities, and were, of course, more intimate with the simple 
forms of nature. But the truth is, that all these descriptions 
and feelings of nature should never, in poetry, be cut off 
and separated from the representation of those human beings, 
of whose real life they form the most beautiful ornaments. 
When they are insolated and set forth by themselves, the 
great and perfect picture of the world, which it is the busi- 
ness of poetry to place before our eyes, becomes contracted 
in its limits ; the harmony is irremediably destroyed, and 
that power, which is so irresistible when all is together, be 
comes broken, dissipated, and ineffectual. The scientific 
poetry of nature which is to be found in Lucretius, is, -in 
fact, as defective, as a mode of writing, as the doctrines 
which he defends are destructive as a system of philosophy ; 
and this is not the less true, because Lucretius himself is 
entitled, as a man, to much respect — as a poet, to our most 
enthusiastic admiration. 

The great writers of Rome may be best classed and ar- 
ranged according to the periods in which they were pro- 
duced. The last ages of the republic were somewhat less 
perfect in point of language, but perhaps in every other re- 
spect richer, than the age of Augustus. Cicero, considered 
as an orator, possesses great variety of materials, and is suf- 
ficiently skilful in his application of them to the purposes of 
his art : perhaps the greatness of the events of which they 



THEIR INFLUENCE ON ROMAN LITERATURE. 81 

treat, and the high place which Cicero himself holds in the 
history of the world, have conferred on these orations a cha- 
racter of still higher importance than that which they in- 
trinsically deserve. It seems, at least, by no means easy to 
be explained, why compositions so often overflowing with 
verbosity, should have come to be considered as standards 
of good writing. Even his cotemporaries used to reproach 
him with imitating the swell and pomp of Asiatic eloquence. 
But, in truth, the influence which Cicero exerted on the 
literature and general character of the Roman people, pro- 
ceeded principally from his having been the introducer ot 
the more elevated moral philosophy of the Greeks. For 
those more abstruse speculations, among the labyrinths of 
which the spirit of the Greeks was so delighted to find a fit 
exercise for its subtleness and ingenuity, neither Cicero nor 
any other Roman writer possessed either feeling or talent. 
But as a friend and lover of philosophy, Cicero must ever 
be conspicuous. He found in it consolation in p-«-ivate ad- 
versity, comfort in political misfortunes, occupation in re- 
tirement, and amusement in exile. The philosophy of Plato 
was his principal favourite : he considered him as the most 
happy specimen of an universally beautiful and cultivated 
intellect, and agreed with all antiquity in esteeming his 
works the models of perfection, both in reasoning and in 
language. But Plato, however skilfully he had elaborated 
the individual parts of his philosophy, had never reduced its 
whole doctrines to any regular system ; in consequence of 
which circumstance, the later disciples of the Platonic 
sch.ool, through the medium of whom the whole of the Pla- 
tonic doctrines became known to the Romans, had returned, 
in a great measure, to the prejudices of scepticism. This 
was attended with the worst consequences in the department 
of gtMcSj^and accordingly, Cicero very often, in regard to 
thafsutject, made use of the doctrines of Zeno; or where he 
found the austerity of these too repulsive, had recourse to 
those of Aristotle, who, as he professed in every thing to 
prefer the medium,""so in morals he formed himself the me- 
dium between the severity of Stoicks, and the laxity of the 
Epicureans. To this last school Cicero was uniformly hos- 
tile, and certainly not without reason. It would, indeed, be 
too much to believe that all those ancient philosophers, who 



82 INFLUENCE OF EPICURUS. 

like Epicurus, considered pleasure as the last and highest 
end of human existence, really extracted from this opinion, 
and exemplified in their practice, all the evil which we can 
trace to the adoption of similar principles. Bu4; even allow- 
ing that by this pleasure, which they considered as the chiel 
good of man, they understood not positive sensual gratifica- 
tion, as was the case with Aristippus, — but only a painless 
state of intellectual enjoyment, which the best of the Epicu- 
reans, like the other philosophers of Greece, conceived was 
only to be found in the exercise of intellectual energies, and 
the society of congenial friends ; — even allowing this, and 
laying out of the question all that grossness of abuse which 
has been heaped on Epicurus and his disciples, — these phi- 
losophers were all in so far wrong, that they taught man- 
kind to seek for their best happiness any where else than in 
a vigorous discharge of their active duties as men and as 
citizens. These doctrines tended, at least, to make men re- 
gard themselves too exclusively, as beings independent ol 
political events ; and the adoption of them at Rome was pro- 
bably extremely hurtful to the Roman constitution. Cicero, 
in his enmity to Epicurus and his doctrines, was guided by 
the feelings of a wise and reflecting patriotism. And on 
this account it is that his philosophical writings have been 
the favourite study of many active statesmen, who had not 
leisure to follow out long trains of profound reasoning, but 
were willing to diversify their moments of leisure by the pe- 
rusal of works abounding in sane and rational views of hu- 
man actions and principles. 

In the form, as well as in the style, of his composition, 
Cicero is extremely unequal ; but this is a fault with which 
almost all the Roman writers are more or less chargeable, 
and is, indeed, a natural consequence of the difficulty which 
they must have experienced, in reducing that which they 
had borrowed or learned from the Greeks, to an entire har- 
mony with the thoughts, feelings, and expressions which 
were original in themselves. 

We have the first specimen of a perfect equality of ex- 
pression in Ceesar. In his writings he displays the same 
character which distinguished him in action ; all is directed 
to one end, and every thing is better adapted to the attain- 
nent of tnat end, than any thing which could have been sub- 



THE WRITINGS OF CAESAR AND SALLUST. 83 

stitiited in its room. He possesses, in the utmost perfection, 
two qualities which, next to liveliness, are the most neces 
sary in historical compositions, — ^cleaTnes_s..and simplicity. 
And yet how widely different are the distinctness and brevity 
of Cs&sar, from that open-hearted guilelessness, and almost 
Homer-like loquacity and clearness, which we admire in 
Herodotus. As a general arranges his troops where they 
can act the most efficiently and the most securely, and is 
careful to make use of every advantage against his enemy, 
even so does Cassar arrange every word and expression with 
a view to its ultimate effect — and even so steadfastly does he 
pursue his object, without being ever tempted to turn to the 
right hand or to the left. Among these ancient generals 
who. like him, have described their o-v\-n achievements, Xeno- 
phon, with all the perfection of his Attic taste, occupies, as 
a commander, too insignificant a place, to be for a moment 
put in comparison with Caesar. Several of Alexander's 
generals, and Hannibal himself wrote accounts of the re- 
markable campaigns in which they had been engaged, but 
unfortunately, their compositions have entirely perished. 
The Roman, even as a writer, when ^Ye compare him with 
those w^lio, in similar situations, have made similar attempts 
is still Caesar — the unrivalled and*the unconquered. 

In the drawing ofjcharacters, and indeed, in general, as a 
historical painter, Sallust has few equals ; but he is neither 
so clear nor so consistent a writer, nor endued with so deli- 
cate a sense of propriety, as Caesar. Here and there we 
perpetually meet with something forced in his style, and 
detect the elaborate artifice of a practised waiter. Even in 
history — a form of writing which was more easily than any 
other transplanted to Rome from the Greek republics, where 
It had its origin — the close imitation of any individual model 
never failed to produce disagreeable consequences : and of 
this we have a striking example in Sallust, whose strict imi- 
tation of Thucydides has gone far to lessen the effect of his 
own great original genius. 

In this first flourishing age of Roman authors, it is easj^ 
to perceive of what advantage it is to the literature of any 
nation, that men of the most elevated rank should take a part 
in it, and co-operate with their inferiors in the forwarding ol 
its development. Their influence insensibly extends itseii tv 



84 THE AUGUSTAN AGE. 

every department of literature; and their countr\Tnen learn 
to treat of every thing, and to judge of ever)^ thing, as if they 
were all animated with the dignified spirit of nobility. It is 
to this circumstance that the Roman literature is indebtea, 
for a great part of its characteristic greatness of thought and 
expression. As after the death of Brutus a new order of 
things commenced in the political world, the world of letters 
experienced a corresponding revolution. The literature of 
the age of Augustus is distinguished by a tone of spirit en- 
tirely its own. The free voice of eloquence was stopped ; 
and the consequence was, that men returned again with re- 
doubled affection to poetry, which had been mute, in a great 
measure, during the tempestuous periods of the civil wars. 
Nothing, it was now supposed, could so well celebrate and 
adorn the restoration of peace, and the happy reign of Octa- 
vius, as the appearance of great national poets, who might 
supply the chief defect in the literature of their country, and 
create a body of classical works, in which the ancient Ro- 
man traditions might be handed doA^n to posterity. With a 
^dew to this, not Virgil alone, but also Propertius and Horace, 
were flattered, courted, and enriched, in a manner to which 
the literary men of all other ages and countries have been 
strangers, by the liberal courtiers of Augustus. Pr(2pertius, 
by the jichness of his sjtyle, seems to have been well qualified 
for enjc. p oetry ; but he would not sacrifice for fame the free- 
dom of his own inclinations : he lived only for himself and 
those feelings of friendship and unfortunate love, Vvhich filled 
all his soul, and which animate all his writings with a ten- 
derness unequalled in any other author of his country. 
Horace perhaps exceeds all the Roman writers who have 
come doA\Ti to us, in true feeling for heroic greatness. He 
was a patriot who locked up within his o^^ti breast his sor- 
row for the subversion of the commonwealth ; and who had 
recourse to all manner of pleasures, perhaps even to poetry 
itself, with a ^dew to dissipate the grief with which he was 
oppressed. On every occasion we can see the inspiring 
flame of patriotism and freedom breaking through that mist 
of le-vdty, in which his poetry is involved. He could not in- 
deed have framed any great poem out of the early history oT 
traditions of his country, without perpetually^ betraying feel- 
ings which were no longer in season, and could not have 



THE WORKS OF VIRGIL. 05 

been listened to without a crime. He constrained his incli- 
nations, and endeavoured to write like a royalist; but, in 
spite of himself, he is still manifestly a republican and a 
Roman. 

The calm, industrious, and feeling Virgil was, by his 
love for nature and for a country life, peculiarly qualified to 
be the jaational poet of the Romans. The old Roman, or in 
general, indeed, the old Italian mode of life, was entirely 
agricultural and rural, while the Greeks, on the other hand, 
were chiefly, and that from their earliest days, a trafficking, 
sea-faring, and commercial people. Even the most illus- 
trious and noble of the citizens of Rome, lived, in the best 
days of the republic, entirely according to the old customs of 
their countrymen; and even in the later periods, notwith- 
standing the great corruption of the metropolis itself, that 
soundness and strength of moral feeling, and that purity of 
maimers, which belong to an agricultural and rural nation, 
were far from being entirely banished out of the surround- 
ing districts of Italy. To dwell on rural enjoyments, and 
make use of simple feelings, therefore, was quite necessary 
for one who aspired to be the poet not of the metropolis, but 
of the nation. Virgil's love for nature and a country life is 
evident, indeed, in the first work of his youth, the Eclogues; 
but he has displayed it with the richest eloquence in the 
most perfect of all his works — the Georgics. If he had 
only paid due honour to this species of poetry, in itself so 
masterly, so well adapted for Rome (restored as she was to 
peace after a succession of wars and revolutions.) and, in 
truth, so kindred to the general feeiino-s and propensities of 
all Italians, and refrained from embodying it in the foreign 
and artificial form of the Alexandrian didactic; if he had 
only given to agriculture and rural feelings as prominent a 
place in his great work, as they really occupied in the an- 
cient ages of his country, and so presented us with one com- 
prehensive and perfect picture of the old Italian life, — the 
heroic traditions, which it was his chief purpose to revive, 
would have then obtained a faster held on our feelings, and 
a closer connection with the thoughts of all men and all 
ages, and. in short, would have been presented to us with a 
concentrated spirit and a life, which the plan he has adopted 
was the most infallible way to dissipate or extinguish. The 



86 DEFECTS OF THE ^NEID. 

whole scope of his heroic poem would then have been en- 
larged, and the connection of its parts would have become 
infinitely less artificial. In the very stiff arrangement which 
he has adopted, the latter part of his poem, which is exclu- 
sively dedicated to Italian subjects, appears to infinite disad- 
vantage when compared with the first, in which he has so 
happily connected the origin of the Romans with the heroic 
tales of the Trojan period, and made such liberal use of all 
t-he rich inventions of the old poets of the Greeks. Not- 
withstanding all these defects, however, the JEneid, although 
Virgil himself despised and even wished to destroy it, has 
always kept its place as the peculiar national poem of the 
Romans. Were we to judge merely by the hign flow of 
inspiration, and the unlaboured felicity of inborn talent, we 
might perhaps consider Lucretius, or even Qvid^as a greater 
poetical genius than Virgil ; what secures to him the pre- 
ference, is that national feeling which forms not the occa- 
sional charm, but the perpetual inspiration of his poetr3^ 
Still the iEneid can never be looked upon as a p.erfect poem. 
The same struggle between borrowed art and native strength, 
which may be remarked in almost all Roman poets, is evi- 
dent in Virgil ; and in him, not less than in the others, a 
consequent want of harmony in materials, and even in lan- 
guage, may not unfrequently be observed. 

But if Virgil be not exempt from this fault, it is undoubt- 
edly far more apparent in Horace and the other lyrical poets. 
The epic poetry of different nations has always many points 
of coincidence ; although it is evident enough that the rigid 
imitation of Homer has weakened and confined the genius 
of Virgil, and drawn both him and many more recent poets 
into the most glaring errors. But, laying the form of com- 
position altogether out of the question, the heroic legends of 
one people can in general be pretty easily engrafted on 
those of another. In the early traditions of nations the most 
remote from each other, we find invariably a thousand cir- 
cumstances wherein the resemblance is too striking to escape 
the most superficial observer. I shall not on the present 
occasion pretend to decide, whether this resemblance be 
merely the result of a necessary similarity in the situation oi 
all nations in the infant periods of society : or whether it be 
not so remarkable in many circumstances — particularly in 



THE WORKS OF HORACE. 87 

the marvellous fictions and not very obvious symbols which 
have so generally been adopted, as to warrant the conclu- 
sion, that the coincidence could only have proceeded from 
the common origin of nations apparently the most uncon- 
nected. In serious dramatic poetry, the knowledge of wdiat 
degrees of perfection have been attained by other nations, is 
of great use ; for it supplies us with specimens of what may 
be attained, and with a standard by which we may judge of 
the success of our oa^ti attempts. Still, however, the mere 
form of a foreign drama should never be imitated ; the stage 
which aspires to exert an universal influence, must assume 
a character conformable to the manners, education, temper, 
and modes of thinking, which prevail among the nation who 
who are to survey its exhibitions. The drama is always 
powerful exactly in proportion as it is peculiar. 

But in no species of composition is imitation so hurtful 
and despicable as in lyrical poetry. The whole charmi and 
excellence of this sort of writing consists, in its being the 
free emanation of individual feelings. The w^hole beauty 
of it vanishes the moment we detect a single trace of imita- 
tion ; it is only tolerable because it is natural, and the ap- 
pearance of art renders it immediately disgusting. But in 
the writings of Roman lyrical poets, there is nothing more 
common, than to be able to point out, w^th the utmost pre- 
cision, the line where imitation of some Greek original 
ends, and the poet begins to speak from his own feelings 
It is perhaps the best proof of the power of Horace's genius, 
that in spite of this defect, which is as common in his writ- 
ings as in any other, he is still of all Roman poets the one 
who commands the greatest share of our sympathy, and stirs 
up our enthusiasm with the most potent magic. His great- 
ness is ever most conspicuous when he speaks altogether as 
a Roman, — when he dwells upon the sublime magnanimity 
of antiquity, on the solitary grandeur of the exiled Regulus, 
or on those other heroes who, in his own phrase, " where 
prodigal of their great souls" in the service of their country. 

In satire, the only species of writing which can be said 
to have been an invention of the Romans, Horace is equally 
ilhistrious. This sort of writing — which belongs indeed to 
the common class of ludicrous lyrical poetry, but which re- 
ceived at Rome the rank and characteristics of a separate 



88 ROMAN PROSE WRITERS. 

species of composition, and gave rise to a neiv and less stately 
form of the heroic measure — is exclusively Roman, not m 
these respects only, but also in the spirit with which it is 
animated, and the whole subject of which it treats. Tt is 
entirely confined to the capital itself, the social habits and 
customs, amusements, spectacles, and assemblies of its in- 
habitants ; but perhaps its most favourite topic is the cor- 
ruption of Roman manners, which were now daily ap- 
proaching to the last stage of possible viciousness ; this great 
city having become not only the seat of universal govern- 
ment and wealth, but also the centre point of attraction to 
the whole family of adventurers, — the magnet which was 
perpetually drawing within its circle the collected filth and 
worthlessness of the whole world. The only perfect pic- 
ture Avhich poetry can set before us of common life, is in 
the drama: individual traits or scenes, however masterly, 
can never satisfy us. The Roman satire, therefore, in the 
hands of such a writer as Horace, is merely a substitute for 
that comedy which the Roman people ought to have pos- 
sessed. With regard to the satires of Juvenal, their chief 
interest depends on the vehement expression of scorn and 
indignation excited by the contemplation of the execrable 
vices : the spirit in which they are conceived may be morally 
sublime, but can scarcely receive the name of poetical. 

In their pros€ writings, the Romans attained much higher 
eminence than in their poetry. Livy may be said to be per- 
fect so far as language is concerned ; for in him we have a 
faultless specimen of that rhetorical species of history which 
was peculiar to the ancients. 

The first half of the long reign of Augustus commonly 
receives the credit of having produced a number of great 
geniuses, whose talents, it is very true, were first perfectly 
developed during that period, but who had, in fact, been, 
almost all of them, born in the last years of the republic ; 
who had seen with their own eyes the greatness of their 
country, and been animated in their youth with the breath 
of freedom. The younger generation, who were born, or 
who, at the least, grew up to manhood, after the commence- 
ment of the monarchy, were altogether different. In the 
last years of Augustus we can already perceive the symp- 
toms of declining taste ; in Ovid particularly, who is over- 



DECLINE OF ROMAN LITERATURE. 89 

run with an unhealthy superfluity of fancy, and a sentimental 
effeminacy of expression. 

How soon even history, in which the Romans were most 
successful, yielded to the depressing influence of the follo^Y- 
ing Caesars, and became corrupted, even as an art, may be 
easily seen in the timid style of Velleius, to say nothing of 
the flattering meanness with which that writer often dis- 
guises the true import of the incidents which he narrates. 
The proper head and founder of a new and most artificial 
taste in writing, which soon afterwards became predominant, 
was Seneca the philosopher. The more despotic the govern- 
ment became, the mo^-e were those, whose spirits w^ere still 
unsatisfied, inclined to throw themselves into the arms of Stoi- 
cism ; the principles of that philosophy were agreeable to 
the pride and freedom of strong minds, exactly in proportion 
as every thing noble and free was banished from the princi- 
ples and practice of the tyrants under which they lived. An 
unnatural pomp, and extravagance even, of expression, has 
been, in more instances than this, produced by the political 
and social depression of a nation. But Lucan furnishes 
perhaps the most striking example of this seemingly strdnge 
consequence of despotism ; in him we find the most outrage- 
ously republican feelings making their chosen abode in the 
breast of a wealthy and luxurious courtier of Nero. It ex- 
cites surprise, and even disgust, to observe how he stoops to 
flatter that detestable tyrant, in expressions, the meanness of 
which amounts to a crime ; and then, in the next page, exalts 
Cato above the gods themselves, and speaks of all the ene- 
mies of the first Caesar with an admiration that approaches 
to idolatry. The Roman poetry, as if unwilling altogether 
to deny its most ancient though nearly forgotten destination, 
came back in the hands of Lucan. to the celebration of the 
heroes of Roman history. There can be no doubt that a 
great historical event may in itself be very well fitted to form 
the subject of an heroic poem: how near or how distant this 
event may be in a chronological point of view, is, I think, 
a matter of little consequence ; the nature, not the date of 
the incidents, should be principally considered. The his- 
torical event which is to form the subject of an epic poem 
should be one wherein feeling and audacity seem to have 
exerted a more predominant influence than reasoning and 
8* 



90 THE AUGUSTAN AGE. 

calculation, — one, in short, which affords room for the play 
of fancy. The life and achievements of Alexander the 
Great, for instance, the fall of Darius, and the expedition to 
India, might, I have no doubt, furnish an excellent epic sub- 
ject in the hands of a poet capable of doing justice to such a 
theme. The civil war between Caesar and Pompey, on the 
other hand, — a contest, strictly speaking, not of men or he- 
roes, but of parties and political systems, has formed the 
ground-work of several excellent tragedies in modern times ; 
but I am at a loss to conceive the possibility of its ever being 
formed into a fit subject of epic poetry by the art or the 
genius of any writer. The picture of the taste of this period 
is completed by the obscure Persius, and the forced style of 
the elder Pliny. This last author may furnish us with 
some idea of the extent to which the Romans might have 
enlarged the field of human knowledge, had they made use 
of the facilities which were placed within their reach by the 
political position of their country, and made it their business 
to collect together the natural curiosities of the different 
regions to which their influence extended. 

Better times, however, succeeded to these; the civilized 
world was destined to be governed for a season by a genuine 
Roman of the ancient school, sitting on the throne of Augus- 
tus. As Trajan was the last of the Caesars who thought 
like a Roman, and rivalled the old Roman greatness both 
in his principles and his achievements, so, very shortly be- 
fore his reign, the kindred genius of Tacitus concluded the 
series of great authors whom Rome was destined to pro- 
duce. This writer had received his education during the 
reigns of Vespasian and Titus, times which appeared happy, 
because they had been preceded by the atrocities of Nero ; 
he had learned to meditate and be silent under Domitian, 
and under Nerva he saw the beginning of that more fortu- 
nate period which was to appear in the fulness of its glory 
under the blessed reign of Trajan. 

The profound thoughtfulness of his spirit, and the cor- 
responding though perhaps yet more peculiar depth of his 
expressions, appear always the more inimitable, the more 
attempts are made at their imitation. Even in style, he 
may be said to be perfect, although the language of his day 
neither was nor could be, any longer the same with that of 



ROMAN AUTHORS COMPARED, ^1 

the time of the great Caesar or of Livy. In these three 
authors, according to my apprehension, the language of 
Rome is displayed in its utmost purity and perfection : in 
Caesar it appears in unadorned simplicity and greatness ; in 
Livy it wears all the splendour and ornament of elaborate 
rhetoric, but is still free from exaggeration, beautiful and noble 
in its construction ; in Tacitus, although he is far from either 
the chaste simplicity of the one, or the polished elegance of 
the other of these writers, it assumes an appearance of depth, 
power, and energy, to which it had as yet been a stranger. 
It would seem as if the memory had been even more power- 
ful than the presence of Roman greatness, and stamped a 
character of loftiness on the historian of despotic cruelty, 
to whi^h none of those who celebrated liberty and victory 
could attaiiL 



LECTURE IV. 



BHORT DURATION OF THE ROMAN LITERATURE NEW EPOCH UNDER HA- 

DRIAN INFLUENCE OF THE OPINIONS OF THE ORIENTALS ON THR 

PHILOSOPHY O.F THE WEST MOSAIC WRITINGS, POETRY OF THE HE- 
BREWS RELIGION OF THE PERSIANS MONUMENTS OF THE INDIANS 

MODES OF INTERMENT AMONG THE ANCIENT NATIONS. 

I HAVE already said, that literature and philosophy were, 
at the best, plants foreign to the soil of Rome, and now I 
imagine all will be inclined to join in my opinion who com- 
pare either the number of great Roman writers with that of 
great Greek writers, or the period during which art and 
literature flourished in Rome, with the time during which 
Greece was so eminently distinguished for her attainments 
In both. 

Rome possessed many translators from the Greek, as well 
as some poets and original writers of her own, from the 
time when the Scipos began to patronise Greek literature 
and rhetoric ; when Cato began to inquire into the history, 
antiquities, and language of the Roman people, with a view 
to counteract the influence of the Greek taste, introduced by 
the Scipios ; and when Ennius, in part at least, began to 
apply the art and poetical measures of the Greeks to Ro- 
man subjects, and to lay the foundation of a Roman school 
of poetry. But to complete the idea of a flourishing litera- 
ture, we require something more than a few individual 
inquiries and works, and these, too, as in the present 
case, sometimes not a little at variance with each other; 
we look for a certain connection and unity among all the 
parts of literature, a determinate and regular fixing of lan- 
guage, particularly of prose ; in short, we expect to see the 
effects of general education, and a wide spread cultivation 
of all those branches of knowledge which regard either lan- 
g-uage, or rhetoric, or even the higher depaitments of philo- 



ADVANCEMENT OF ROMAN LITEilATURE. 93 

Sophy. The literature of Rome can scarcely be said to have 
existed till the time of £icero, who had a greater share in 
its formation than any other individual, and may, indeed, 
almost be said to have created the peculiar character by 
which it was at all times distinguished. Before his time 
the whole education of his country, whether with a view to 
eloquence, or in general to polite letters, was conducted on 
J3reek principles, after Greek models, and in the Gret^k 
Janguage. He first demonstrated the possibility of carryiiig 
on an extensive and scientific education in the Roman lan- 
guage, by framing and fashioning its constructions so as to 
embrace, in the happiest manner, the subjects of philosophy, 
and in particular the theory of rhetoric. The Roman lan- 
guage was not only enlarged, it was also fixed and settled, 
by the writings of Cicero. To this, however, many illus- 
trious writers contributed very greatly about the same period : 
above all, Csesar and Yarro, by their grammatical writings. 
Next to Cicero, these had certainly the greatest part in the 
formation of the proper literature of Rome : Csesar, by the 
improvement which Roman speakers derived from the ex- 
ample of his eloquence in the senate, but still more by the 
labour which he bestowed on giving to the language, of 
which he Avas so perfectly master, a scientific shape and 
consistency, and so enabling it to effect its purposes with 
greater power and certainty in time to come : Varro, scarce- 
ly less than CcEsar, by his extensive erudition and the for- 
.nation of his great library, as well as by his profound in- 
-■estigations of antiquities and language. The united excel- 
lencies of these three authors entitle the age in which they 
lived to be considered as the most important epoch of Ro- 
man literature. I have already endeavoured to give a very 
short sketch of the most remarkable Roman writers down 
to the time of Trajan. The panegyric of that prince by 
the younger Pliny may be considered as the last exertion of 
the flourishing literature of Rome. His virtues were well 
deserving of such a celebration, but Roman eloquence, after 
this successful attempt, soon sank into a state of utter de- 
cline. The imbecility of the imitators of Pliny was as re- 
markable as the inferiority of the despicable tyrants whom 
they panegyrized, to the manly virtues of Trajan. 

The classical period of the Roman iiteraturej then, reckon- 



94 ROMAN JURISPRUDENCE. 

mg ^rom the consulate of Cicero till the death of Trajan, in 
eluded no more than one hundred and eighty years. Within 
the same period, also, the science of jurisprudence, the only 
original intellectual possession of great value to which the 
Romans can lay undisputed claim, received its first deve- 
lopment, and began to assume the appearance of a science. 
Cicero and Caesar were both impressed with a sense of the 
necessity which, even in their time, existed for collecting in- 
to a complete body, and arranging in a perspicuous man- 
ner, the immense and discouraging masses of Roman sta- 
tutes: under Augustus, and in the reigns immediately ^fol- 
lowing his, both departments of jurisprudence — that of strict 
'law on the one hand, and that of equity on the other — ^be- 
e;-an to be valued according to their merits, and to have the 
limits of their respective application ascertained. It was re- 
served for Hadrian, by the publication of a complete code, 
(the perpetual edict as it is called,) to accomplish that which 
had been the object of wish, rather than of hope, both to 
Cicero and Caesar. 

With Hadrian there commences a period altogether new, 
not on\j in the principles of government, but also in the ge- 
neral mode of thinking adopted by the Roman people. The 
Greek language and literature began daily to recover the 
attention which was due to them, to receive ample atone- 
ment for the neglect under which they had for some time 
lain, and to secure for themselves an ever increasing intel- 
lectual dominion over the whole civilized world — united as 
that now was in a political point of view under the govern- 
ment of the Roman Caesars. 

When the Roman writers of any note were becoming 
every day fewer after the time of Trajan, and while of 
these even the best were at all times unworthy of being 
compared for a moment with those of the ages w^hich pre- 
ceded them, the fate of Grecian letters exhibited an exactly 
opposite appearance. The literature and philosophy of 
Greece seemed, about the very period when these were ut- 
terly extinguished among the Romans, to have received a 
new life, and an accession of universal intellectual activity. 
There grew up forthwith a rich after-crop of Grecian ge- 
nius, not altogether unworthy, either with regard to its sub- 
stance or its appearance, of the richer harvest that had gone 



PROGRESS OF GREEK LITERATURE. 95 

before it — at all events, incomparably s^iperior to any thing 
which had been produced for some ages immediately pre- 
ceding. In poetry, it is true, it does not appear that any 
thing either very new or very excellent sprung up among 
them; but to atone for this, ^phibsophj; and rhetoric (things 
which in the old Attic period were regarded as altogether 
separate and irreconcileable) began now t-o be studied with 
unprecedented ardour, and blended together into the most 
complete co-operation. The old Socratic method of treat- 
ing philosophical subjects (a method of which we have the 
best specimens in the iialogues of Plato) could now no 
longer be adopted; the manners and mode of life which that 
method took for granted had entirely passed away, and that 
simple form of philosophising was altogether unsuitable 
for those which had succeeded them. The scientific and 
rigid accuracy of Aristotle was at all times adapted only 
for a few. The consequence was, that there arose a more 
rhetorical manner of treating scientific subjects, which con- 
tinued in fashion from the reign of Hadrian and the two 
Antonines. down to the Emperor Julian, and which has 
been adopted, even in these modern times, by a great many 
writers of distinguished eminence. And here I may remark 
in passing, that the Greeks displayed, indeed, at some parti- 
cular periods, the highest reach and inventiveness of poetical 
genius ; but that rhetoric was, beyond all question, the art 
most particularly their own. It was born with them, and 
remained even truly and indisputably theirs from the earliest 
times till the latest : if now and then it seemed as if it had 
deserted them, it was only to spring up again under some 
other form, and to cling to them yet more fervently than 
before. 

Among the great crowd of writers belonging to this latter 
period of ancient Greek literature, who are in general useful 
only as sources of historical information, or as supplying, 
in some measure, the place of those older and better works 
out of which they derived their materials, we find, never- 
theless, some Jew who possess a value more universal, and 
more their own. Of these, the first is Plutarch, whose 
Li2i&s^V7ith. all their defects in writing, as w^ell as in thought, 
have brought down to the modern world a true treasure of 
moml_ wisdom, which is even, at the present day, akogether 



96 PLUTARCH AND OTHER HISTORIAN^ 

invaluable. His style is overladen, and not untreqiient.y 
corrupt. Among the overflowing fulness of remarks with 
which he has garnished the lives of his heroes, we must be 
careful to make our selection ; there are among them not a 
few which are altogether unsuitable and childish. On the 
whole, however, Plutarch shews himself everywhere to have 
been a man of the most praiseworthy intentions, and one 
who had, so far, at least, as morals are concerned, made 
himself master of the whole riches of the flourishing and 
classical ages of Greece, was familiar with all the disputes, 
and penetrated with all the most dignified conceptions of the 
old sages of his country. In Lucian, again, we find the 
clearest evidence, that the true elegance of Greek style, and 
the spirit of the Attic wit, had not yet altogether passed 
away. There are few authors, of any age or country, who 
can be put in the same rank with Lucian, as writers of sati- 
rical and miscellaneous philosophy. His highest value, 
however, consists, without doubt, in his pictures of man- 
ners. Even in history, Arrian (who has been commonly 
called the best historian of Alexander) deserves, on account 
of his beautiful and unaffected style, to be placed near Xeno- 
phon. And Marcus Aurehus occupies so great and glori- 
ous a place in the history of the human kind, that the medi- 
tations of this last of the great and virtuous of Roman sove- 
reigns, written as they are in the Greek language, and ex- 
hibiting the most perfect acquaintance with the philosophy 
of the Stoics, must always be sought after with great curi- 
osity, and dwelt upon with the profoundest interest, by every 
lover of virtue, as well as of letters. 

The history of the unworthy successors of Marcus Aure- 
relius, is written by Herodian in a style which we could 
scarcely have looked for at the period in which he lived. 

Antoninus Pius was the first who introduced into the 
Roman empire the Greek philosophers of different sects as 
instruments of education, and inlisted, so to speak, that im- 
portant body of men in the service of the state. Philosophy, 
particularly that of the Stoics, was now called in to prop up, 
if possible, or, at least, to supply the place of that popular 
belief which was hurrying irresistibly to its ruin. How 
much the belief in the old gods had become sunk and weak- 
ened, how widely doubt, freethinking, and infidelity had 



NEW PLATONIC PHILOSOPHY 97 

now become spread abroad in the Roman world, we can 
gather without difficulty from Lucian. But the true type 
of that universal fermentation of opinions, and restless acti- 
vity of inquiry which distinguished this age, must be sought 
for in the most undisguised of all ancient sceptics — Sextus 
Empiricus. We may also learn from Lucian, how preva- 
lent, at the same period, was the propensity to superstition, — 
by Avhat rapid strides a sort of philosophical credulity began 
to take the place of the old poetical credulity of the popular 
creed; how a belief in .astrology, and a leaning to the ma- 
gical sciences, were fostered by the ruling influence of ssecrei 
societies and brotherhoods, till at last they were openly pro- 
fessed in the writings, as well as oral communications, of 
the philosophic teachers of the day. The influence of ori- 
ental opinions and principles was, indeed, becoming every 
day more powerful, and this introduced, not only a more 
near acquaintance with the old and pure fountains of truth, 
I ut also a stream of wilder superstitions than could have 
sprung out of the cold soil of the west. We can trace this 
tendi^ncy to orientalism even in the architecture of the age 
of Hadrian, which was remarkable For its recurrence to an 
almost Egyptian massiness. ^Plutarch, although classed 
among the followers of Plato, exhibits the Platonic philo- 
sophy under an aspect altogether new ; when she had be- 
gun to embrace within her range all the rules of those ori- 
ginal Egyptian doctrines which were at that time ascribed 
to Pythagoras, and to approximate more and more nearly 
to all the relics of that old oriental wisdom, from which 
Plato himself had derived the most sublime of his concep- 
tions. 

This new Platonic philosophy very soon came to be the 
only one in vogue ; the other sects, such as the Sceptical, 
the Epicurean, and even the Stoical, ceased to preserve their 
distinct and individual appearance. Yet not a few of the 
peculiar opinions of the Stoics entered into the composition 
of this inclusive philosophy of the later Greeks, which de- 
rived from the chief of its component parts the name of New- 
Platonic. It was this philosophy which, for a long time, 
contended against Christianity with the most violent exer- 
tions of intellectual strength, which had hopes in the days 
of the Emperor Julian of acquiring an entire victory, of 

9 



98 CHRISTIANITY AND HEATHENISM 

preserving unbroken the old popular creed, and infusing into 
it the elements of a new life, by interpreting its allegories, 
and spiritualizing its personifications. 

This contest between Christianit3r and the heathenish phi- 
losophy — ^between the old polytheism and the. new belief^ a 
poetical m^-thology and a religion of morality — is the most 
remarkable, intellectual contest which has ever been exhi- 
bited and determined among the human race. It forms not 
only the wall of partition between the two worlds — the age? 
of antiquity which terminated in it, and these of modern 
times which sprung out of it ; in the history of all culture, 
it is the keystone upon Avhich every thing hangs ; in the 
history of the development of the human intellect, it is the 
central point from which all illumination must be derived. 
To set before you this great contest with that clearness at 
which a complete history of literature ought to aim. to point 
out its influence not only on language and art, but also on 
the fate of nations, and the general destin}^ of man, would re- 
quire limits which are far beyond my reach. To give any 
idea of it which can be at all satisfactory, it is necessary that 
I should begin with some inquiries into the peculiar spirit 
of the Greek philosophy: that I should point out the place 
which the Christian doctrines and Scriptures occupy in the 
history of the human mind ; and that I should briefly ex- 
plain the nature of those other relics of oriental wisdom, 
which are in part in harmony with the doctrines of Moses 
and of Christ, and were in part the most ancient fountains 
from which the sublime ^asions of the Greek sages were de- 
rived. 

Concerning those minor results of this contest, which may 
be termed the ornamental : concerning the relative influence 
of the two religions on the beautiful fictions of poetr}-, and 
the progress of the imitative arts. I shall at present say no- 
thing. Many opportunities will occur in the sequel, not, 
indeed, of doing justice to these topics, but, at least, of apolo- 
gizinof for the deficiency both of my plan and my execution. 
For the present. I must confine myself altogether to one 
topic, to which, by an irresistible and inborn curiosity, we 
are at all times compelled to devote our first inquiries, which 
we never cease to consider as the great hinge on which the 
whole history and revolutions of the huma'h intellect depend 



PLATO AND ARISTOTLE. 99 

Plato and .Aristotle were the two greatest masters, — it 
may even be said, that they alone mark on every side the 
limits of the knowledge of the Greeks. J^atq treated of 
philosophy altogether as an ^t, Aristotle as a science. In 
the first, we see the thinking faculties in the calm state of 
contemplation, reposing with awful admiration on the spec- 
tacle of Divine perfection. But Aristotle considers intellect 
as something perpetually at work, and delights to trace its 
unceasing operations, not only as the moving power of hu- 
mar. thought and being, but also as the secret principle of 
the activity of Nature, and the master-spring of all her most 
varied demonstrations. Plato is the model of Greek art ; 
Aristotle furnishes the best idea of Grecian science. 

When Plato enters the lists against the Sophists, and pur- 
sues them into the mazes of their errors, he displays great 
acuteness and nicety of penetration: but with all his Attic 
taste, and all his fineness of understanding, with all the 
clearness, and all the skilful adaptation, of his language, he 
becomes not unfrequently dark and sophistical, like those 
against whom he strives. But the leading principle of his 
philosophy is at all times clear and perceptible. From an 
original and infinitely more lofty and intellectual state of 
existence, there remains to man (according to the philosophy 
of Plato) a dark remembrance of divinity and perfection. 
This inborn and implanted recollection of the godlike, re- 
mains ever dark and mysterious ; for man is surrounded by 
the sensible world which, being in itself changeable and 
imperfect, encircles him with images of imperfection, change- 
ableness, corruption, and error, and thus casts perpetual ob- 
scurity over that light which is within him. Wherever in 
ihe sensible and natural world he perceives any thing which 
bears a resemblance to the Godhead, which can serve as a 
symbol of the highest perfection, the old recollections of his 
soul are awakened and refreshed. The love of the beau- 
tiful fills and animates the soul of the beholder with an awe 
and reverence which belong not to the beautiful itself — at 
least not to any sensible manifestation of it — but to that un- 
seen original of which material beaut}'- is the type. From 
this admiration, this new awakened recollection, and this 
mstantaneous inspiration, spring all higher knowledge and 
truth. These are not the product of cold, leisurely, and 



t 



100 THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLATO. 

voluntary reflection, but occupy at once a station far superior 
to what either thought, or art, or speculation can attain ; and 
enter into our inmost souls with the power and presence of 
a gift from the Divinity. 

Plfito, therefore, considers all knowledge of the Godhead 
-and divine things, as only to be derived from higher and 
supernatural sources ; and this is the distinguishing charac- 
teristic of all his philosophy. The dialectical , part of his 
works is only the negative^ in which he combats and over- 
throws error with great art, or with art yet greater and yet 
more inimitable, leads us step by step towards the fountain 
head of truth. But where it is his purpose to reveal this 
itself — that is in the positive part of his works — he expresses 
his meanmg altogether after the fashion of his oriental mas- 
ters, in emblems, and fables, and poetical mysteries; ever 
true to hjs belief in supernatural means of knowledge, and 
acting in all things as if he were really the organ of some 
inspiring and awful revelation. It is not to be denied, that 
his philosophy is essentially incomplete, and that he himself 
seems never to have attained perfect clearness and precision 
in his conceptions. This is sufficiently evident from the ill- 
defined limits assigned in all his writings to remon on the 
one hand, dindi love or mspiration on the other. When he 
speaks of the love of the beautiful and of divine inspiration, 
—when he expressly acknowledges that these are the only 
conductors to all sublimer truths, and asserts, that they ele- 
vate us far beyond the cold regions of human reason and 
reflection, and reveal to us something far more lofty than 
these could ever reach, — we are willing to believe that Plato 
had conceptions at once lively and feeling of God and his 
perfection. But, on the other hand, when he exerts only 
his dialectic art, he often sinks into the common errors of 
his brethren, and seems as if he acknowledged no higher 
idea of perfection than is to be found in that of an unchange- 
able and unoccupied unity of reason. It is true, that in all 
this he was much limited and fettered by the influence and 
opinions of the older philosophers. In general, however, 
his philosophy remained at all times as imperfect as he left 
it — attributing all knovfledge of divine truth to vague indi- 
vidual recollections, and expressing it only in dark hints 
and forebodings — having, in short, no higher merit, than 



THE ETHICS OF SOCRATES. 101 

that of ingrafting on the old Greek philosophy, and adorn- 
ing with all the beauty of Attic art, and all the shrewdness 
of Socratic ethics, some obscure recollections of the old east- 
ern wisdom, and some mysterious presentiments of the doc- 
trines of Christianity. 

The connection of Plato with Socrates, in some degree, 
indeed, kept both him and his immediate followers in 
Athens free from falling into the extreme of mysticism and 
enthusiasm. His disciples w^ere, indeed, sensible in some 
"measure of the imperfection of his system, hut this discovery 
only tended to drive them backward to the old refuges of 
doubt and scepticism. That leaning to mysticism, how- 
ever, which was so conspicuous in his later followers, was, 
in fact, inherent in the mode and substance of their master's 
prhiciples. It is almost impossible that any one should 
receive the doctrine" of a supernatural source of know- 
ledge in the undefined manner in which he has shadowed 
it out — as a dark recollection — a m3'>3terious inspiration — a 
lofty intercourse with the heavens — without falling into the 
same errors for w^hich the New-Platonists are remarkable. 
To put an end to t»his, it was absolutely necessary that 
something altogether different, and much more steadfast, 
should appear, — something which might elevate wavering 
and uncertain forebodings of the truth to the rank of con- 
sistent rules of thinking, and elicit from a world of unsatis- 
fying dreams, a sane and rational belief, worthy of forming 
a rule and standard for the whole life of man. 

When the later followers of Plato made a systematic at- 
tempt to enlarge his imperfect philosophy by a more liberal 
adoption of oriental opinions, the mode in which they con- 
ducted their endeavour was, indeed, often little in unison 
with the Attic taste and Socratic spirit of Plato himself 
But they did nothing which was really at variance with 
the essence of his philosophy, and the recognized principle 
of a higher source of knowledge. Upon that principle, in- 
deed, all the doctrines and relics of oriental wisdom were 
more or less dependent. 

The great principle of Aristotle is by no means so easy 
to be discovered as that of Plato ; and the reason of this 
must be sought for in his ^obscurity, a thing which has been 
complained of from the oldest times, and by his most fer- 



102 Aristotle's system of ethics. 

vent admirers. Yet the result of every man's study of the 
spirit of his philosophy must, I apprehend, be very nearly 
the same, and must be sufficiently consistent with this uni- 
versally acknowledged and lamented obscurity. How. then, 
happens it, that this mighty spirit, this perfect master, both 
of thought and of language, this most acute judge and per- 
spicuous reasoner in regard to all which lies within the 
limit of experience — this great and inventive genius, who 
may be said to have discovered the proper application of 
the instrument, thought — who first reduced reasoning to 
principles, and reflection to a system, — how comes it that 
he should answer those most essential and important ques- 
tions, which man never ceases to propose, — concerning the 
destiny and origin of the human race, — concerning God, 
and the universe — in a manner so dark, unintelligible, and 
unsatisfactory? The cause of this was his rej^ectjon of all 
other sources of knowledge excepting only reason and ex- 
perience. The higher source of knowledge by Plato ap- 
peared to him unsatisfying and unscientific. To reconcile 
reason and experience he had recourse to many intermediate 
contrivances." So fond, indeed, was he of the intermediate, 
that he defines virtue itself the middle point between two 
extremes, and explains every moral evil as being either too 
much or too little. In his scientific discourses concerning 
the external world, that he may avoid that ancient difficulty 
which arises out of the unchangeableness of eternal nature, 
and the perpetual variation in the visible creation, he be- 
takes himself to a similar solution. He admits that the first 
cause, the godlike principle of motion, is indeed in itself 
Jrnmoveable, and that in our sublunary world every thing 
is subject to the laws of perpetual variety and mutation; but 
he thinks he has found an explanation of all our difficul- 
ties when he has discovered that between those two states of 
things there exists yet another world — the w^orld of stars — 
wherein there is to be seen, neither the perfect unmovedness 
of divinity, nor the perpetual changeableness of earthly 
things, but something intermediate,' — a motion which is ini- 
mutdble, and eternal revolutions regulated by the most un- 
varying laws. In like manner, to fill up the great void 
between the source of reason, he introduces the idea of a 
Dassive and suffering understanding, an objective common 



PHILOSOPHY OF ARISTOTLE. 103 

sense between them both. All this may be deserving or 
much admiration, so far as the invention and acuteness alone 
of the philosopher are to be taken into consideration, even 
although we should find them, upon the whole, productive 
of little satisfaction. Nay, this method of philosophizing 
might be productive of the best consequences, when applied 
to any separate object which it is wished thoroughly to exa- 
mine and scrutinize exactly as it stands. But with regard 
to those high questions to which I have above alluded, 
questions which it is impossible for human beings at any 
time to pass over as uninteresting, whose object is to clear 
up those mysteries which hang over the destination of man, 
the nature of God, and the government of the world — with 
regard to all these, it is not in the power, either of experi- 
ence or of reason, to afford any satisfactory rc,)ly. The 
experience of the senses leads only to denial and unbelief; 
the reason is soon bewildered in itself, and can y dd no bet- 
ter answer than a set of unintelligible formulas, to questions 
which are at once simple, unavoidable, and impressive. 
The philosophy of Aristotle partakes of both these defects, 
and is ever hesitating in the midst, between baseless ideal- 
ism a,nd the system of experience ; if we consider the greater 
part of his works and inquiries, particularly those in which 
ne treats of the natural sciences and of morals, it appears as 
if the latter were preponderant ; and Aristotle takes his sta- 
tion at the head of all the empirical philosophers of antiquity, 
not only on account of the extent of his knowledge, but also 
on account of the skilfulness of his inquiries, and admirable 
principles of investigation which he has laid down. But, 
on the other hand, the fundamental idea of all his higher phi- 
losophy and metaphysics is, without doubt, that of a self- 
lirecting activity or entelechia, If, however, we cannot 
find in his works any true and consistent exposition of the 
system of the universe, but only separate inquiries concern- 
ing its individual parts, — if, when we expect a definition of 
the universe or the first cause, we are always sure to be put 
off with some empty formula or bare abstraction; we must 
not forget that these are the faults, not of Aristotle's intel- 
lect, but of the system which he adopted. These are errors 
into which all philosophers, both ancient and modern, have 
fallen, who pretend to explain every thing by human rea- 



104 DISCIPLES OF ARISTOTLE. 

son or experience, and would admit of no higher fountain 
of knowledge, no divine revelation, or tradition of the truth. 

Those who have in philosophy followed the path of Aris- 
totle, or one very similar to his, are indeed innumerable. 
It is true that he had in the times of antiquity comparatively 
few professed followers ; it is also true that there was a time in 
which, although a whole legion of disciples in all the schools, 
both of the east and west, acknowledged his authority, his 
true spirit remained a secret to all his admirers. Since that 
period it has become the fashion to lay to the blame of this 
great philosopher not a few of the errors of his blundering 
disciples, and to vilify and underrate the stagyrite with the 
same sort of prejudiced ignorance which formerly led men 
to deify and adore him. But in every age. and even down 
to our own times, there have been many who. without being 
themselves conscious of it. have been steadfast adherents of 
Aristotle — many of these altogether, or very nearly so, un- 
acquainted with his writings, and not a few who have the 
appearance of being his most deadly enemies and opponents. 
I allude to those, on the one hand, who, pursuing the course 
of deep self-consideration, have been betrayed into the same 
error of unintelligible idealism; and, on the other, ^o all 
those who, from Locke downwards, acknowledge, even in 
philosophy, no source of knowledge but experience. These 
last, whenever they attempt scientific experiment, find them- 
selves incapable of making any progress without some ab- 
stract ideas, and so fall into the same errors of formahty 
which are the chief defects of Aristotle. 

These two great spirits, then, Plato and Aristotle, may be 
said to have given, in some measure, a shape and form to 
the whole range of human thought. They were, indeed, 
but ill appreciated by their cotemporaries, but perhaps even 
for that reason their influence has been greater in the after 
world, of whose spirit they had for many ages the almost 
exclusive direction, not only in all matters of abstract science, 
but also in every thing that relates to the philosophy of hu- 
man life. Even now, after the human intellect has become 
two thousand years older, and been extended and enriched 
by so many discoveries — while the number of books which 
Plato could have read appears to us as nothing, surrounded 
IS we are by immense libraries of ancient erudition and 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 105 

modem acutene?s — while we look do^Yn upon the opinions 
of Aristotle concerning the system of the world as altogether 
nugatory and childish — while we are in the possession of a 
religion which has taught us more lofty conceptions of God, 
and more profound knoAvledge of ourselves — it is strange 
enough that, even in the present day, these two master spirits 
still maintain their ground of pre-eminence, and stand out 
as the great landmarks of intellect. All philosophy is either 
. Perip atetecism or Platonism^ or an attempt, more or less suc- 
cessftil, to reconcile them. He that confesses any higher 
tradition of truth, or fountain of knowledge, is, without all 
question, pursuing the footsteps of Plato ; and this he may 
do without any sort of servilit^^, for the system of Plato is 
by no means one of confinement and narro^A•ness, but a 
liberal and Socratic guide to all manner of investigations 
and researches. For those, on the other hand, who adopt 
the course of reason and experience, it will alwa3^s be im- 
possible to .go much farther than Aristotle has gone. In his 
o^\Ti way and his own department he is great and unrivalled. 
The world can exhibit few spirits which so comprehended 
the whole experience of their age, and required such an 
intellectual supremacy over it as his. He handles reason 
as an jxistrumenitj with a dexterity of which I know no other 
example. 

Out of these two elements was the latei philosophy of 
the Greeks compounded : it was excellent in art and com- 
prehensive in science, but for the truth it was at the best un- 
satisfactory. In it the spirit of Plato Avas predominant and 
the utmost which was aimed at was to supply his want of 
scientific form from Aristotle, and his more serious defect of 
conception from the different opinions and traditions of the 
orientals. 

The Greek philosophy was at all times very different 
from the oriental ; it was more directed to the external ap 
pearances of life, to the beautiful, and to the forms of art. 
Yet, in the midst of a self-satisfaction and national vanity, 
which we easily pardon to this remarkable people, we find, 
that their more profound inquirers, both in the earlier and 
later periods of their history, were not without a high rever- 
ence for the depth and sublimity of the eastern wisdom. 
The chief object of their consideration in these matters was 



106 THE RELIGION OF THE HEBREWS. 

Egypt, from which they, at all times, confessed that their 
o\'im peculiar theology and traditions were derived. In the 
remoter back ground of their intellectual world lay India. 
The belief of the Hebrews remained always infinitely more 
foreign to them, and their mode of thinking was equally re- 
mote from having any connection with the religion of the 
Persians. With the Egyptians, the Phoenicians, and the in- 
habitants of Asia Minor, on the contrary, they were con- 
nected by the tie of one common religion, which, with many 
points of difference in the detail, was, in fact, in all matters 
of serious principle and import, radically and essentially the 
same. The whole of the other known nations of antiquity 
were, indeed, separated from the Hebrews, and in part also 
from the Persians, by the difference of their religions. As 
the Mosaic writings were rendered into Greek in the time 
of the great Ptolemy Philadelphus, it is possible, indeed, 
that many critics before Longinus felt and admired their 
sublimity — endeavoured, as has been often done since, to 
give to Moses a Platonic interpretation, — or even, as has 
also been a favourite notion with many moderns, attempted 
to trace the doctrines of Plato to an acquaintance with the 
Hebrew Scriptures. But, upon the whole, the belief and 
the morality of the Hebrews, as also in later times the doc- 
trines of Christianity, remained altogether foreign to the no- 
tions of the Greeks and Romans. They knew not what to 
make of these remarkable novelties, and even after a more 
intimate acquaintance in the sequel, they never wrote as if 
they were at home in them. Nor could it well be other- 
wise, where even the first and most simple views concerning 
the origin of man and his being, as well as concerning the 
sources of all knowledge, and the purpose of all wisdom, 
were so diametrically opposite and inconsistent. According 
to the ruling belief of the Greeks and Romans, the first of 
the human race sprung up everywhere like vegetables, or 
rather in the same manner that the heat of the sun calls out 
living things from mud and refuse; mere manifestations of 
that activity and fermentation which is inherent in nature, 
and leads her to produce crude and imperfect creatures, raihcr 
than to produce nothing at all. In this mode of treating the 
subject, one element of the human being — earth — received 
too great a degree of consideration; the other, and more 



ORIGIN OF THE HUMAN RACE. 107 

dignified element — the Godlike spark in the human frame 
— was viewed as the result of a theft from heaven, and the 
reward of a successful knavery. Moses, on the other hand, 
taught that man grew not up every where and by chance, 
bat was framed and fashioned by the hand of God himself 
out of the earth, in one particular spo't; and that the spark 
of divinity with which he is animated was not the fruit of 
robbery or audacity, but freely communicated to him by the 
iove of his Maker. This doctrine affords the best clue to 
the history of man and that of his mind, and also the best 
point to which we may refer all the other traditions, and all 
the other doctrines of the East. According to it the oldest 
dwelling of the human race, and the scene of their earliest 
development, lies in the Middle Asia, between the Euphrates 
and the Tio-ris, the Gihon, the Gano-es, and the South Sea ; 
the present race of rnen are entirely separated from that 
early people by an universal catastrophe of natural desola- 
tion. 1 he nations Avhich have become again cultivated 
since this caiastrophe. may all be referred to three great 
famihes. remarkably distinguished from each other by their 
spirit and character. The first is one spread abroad, for the 
most part, in the same Middle Asia, and from the earliest 
date, more enlightened than the others. The second is a 
race diffused principally over the north, of peoples more 
rude, indeed, but at the same time less corrupted and de- 
bauched in their manners, and on that account destined to de- 
rive, in after times, the chief benefit from the more early 
civilization of their eastern neighbours. The last, a race of 
men which had, indeed, a very early part in all higher 
knowledge and refinement, but sunk, even in the oldest times, 
into un worthiness and neglect, from their fearful moral cor- 
ruptions, and that mental bewildering and apathy to which 
these gave birth. This account of Moses is so confirmed to 
us by all the monuments and testimonies of antiquity to which 
we have access, is so extended and strengthened by every in- 
quiry which Ave pursue, that it is well entitled to be viewed 
as the foundation of all historical truth. The two compo- 
nent parts of our revelation — the Mosaic and the Christian 
— form, in different ways, the two centre points of the history 
of the human race. Christianity gave to the whole civilized 
world of the Romans a new creed, new manners, and new 



108 PECTLIARITIES OF THE MOSIAC WRITINGS. 

laws, an altogether new morality, and thereby, in the sequel, 
(for all art and science must ever proceed from the mode of 
thinking and the mode of life, and ever keep in harmony 
with these.) a new and a peculiar system, both of science and 
of art. The Mosaic remains, on the other hand, can alone 
enable us to occupy the right position from which all other 
A\dsdom of the eastern nations should be surveyed. Not that 
the civilization of some other nations was not, in time, pre- 
cedent to that of the Hebrews. That such was the case 
among the Egyptians we have irrefragable proof in those 
giant works of architecture, those monuments which are still 
surveyed by m.odern travellers with the same feelings of awe 
and astonishment which they excited, more than two thou- 
sand years ago, in the breasts of Herodotus and Plato. Even 
before Moses there were hieroglyphics, and he says of him- 
self, that " he was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyp- 
tians." With right were science and art (which are vessels 
chosen to contain heavenly wisdom, and to be subservient to 
it alone) soon taken away from the Egyptians, who confined 
them both within the narrowest limits, and converted them 
to the most unworthy of purposes;. The Mosaic writings 
possess this advantage over all other oriental works, that 
they alone present to our view the Avell-head of truth in its 
original purity and clearness. But our modern philosophers 
have been very unwilling to confess this, and attempted every 
possible method by which they might avoid the result. Some 
have ascribed all wisdom to the Egyptians in the same man- 
ner which was practised by many of the ancient Greeks. 
Others have magnified beyond all bounds the merits of the 
Chinese, extolled their government and mode of life as the 
most perfect, and the morality of their Confocius as the most 
pure. Others, again, have pleased themselves with the fic- 
tion of an Atlantic antiquity in the North ; and some haA-e 
allowed themselves to be so much carried away by their aa- 
miration of the profoundness and beauty of the old Indian 
books, as to embrace the palpably fabulous chronology of 
the Brahmins, and thereby to set all criticism for ever at de- 
fiance. In short, there is no absurdity which some men will 
not swallow, rather than repose their behef on the simple 
ti'uth which is before them. 

Among all those peoples which had any share in that in- 



THE HEBREWS IN PERSIA. 109 

^ellcctual cultivation of the east, whose high antiquity is 
ittested by Egyptian, Persian, and Indian monuments, the 
Persians were, in their religious belief, and the character 
cf their traditions, most akin to the Hebrews, and, of conse- 
G uence, most unlike to the Greeks. Under the mild and 
friendly protection of the Persian monarch, the scattered 
people of the Hebrews were again gathered together, and 
iheir temple rose out of its ruins. The Persians, on the 
contrary, bore as great an aversion as the Hebrews ever did 
to the worship of the Egyptians; and it was their desire ut- 
terly to extirpate it, which alone occasioned their govern- 
ment to have an appearance of oppression in Egypt, to which 
jt was altogether a stranger in every other district of their 
dominions. Long before the Greek Gelon, with that huma- 
nity which was natural to his nation, made it a necessary 
preliminary to a treaty with the Carthaginians, that they 
should " abstain in future from all sacrifices of men," the 
Persian king, Darius, had forbidden that abomination from 
motives of religion. The Persians honoured and recognized 
the same God of light and truth whom the Hebrews wor- 
shipped, although, indeed, much fiction, much mythology, 
and not a little of essential error, was mingled with their 
knowledge of the truth. In the sacred Scriptures themselves 
_ Cyrus is styled the servant of the Lord, a phrase which no 
gratitude could ever have induced any Hebrew to apply to 
an Egyptian Pharaoh. The whole system of life of the 
Persians, and all the institutions of their monarchy, were 
founded upon this belief The monarch was supposed to be 
as a sun of righteousness, a visible emblem of deity and 
eternal light; the seven first princes of the empire were 
meant to shadow out the Amhaspand, or those seven un- 
seen powers which, as the first in the spiritual world, have 
sway over the different powers and regions of external na- 
ture. Such conceptions as these were altogether foreign to 
the Greeks. The same Syrian king who persecuted with 
such severity the Hebrews, and endeavoured to compel them 
to embrace the Grecian superstitions, was also the persecutor 
of the Persian faith. Even Alexander was desirous of root- 
ing out the order of the n^agi, not surely because they as in- 
dividuals were obnoxious to his government, but because the 
doctrines of their faith stood directly in the way of his great 

10 



110 FAITH OF THE PERSIANS AND HEBREWS. 

design. His purpose was to blend Greeks and Persians into 
one people, and, indeed, it is evident enough, that by no half 
measures could this end be accomplished. It was absolute- 
ly necessary either that the Greeks should adopt the worship 
of fire, and desert those temples of which the army of Xerxes 
destroyed so many, and which all Persians abhorred, as the 
instruments of superstition and idolatry ; or that the doctrine 
of ^Zoroaster should be extirpated, and the Greek or Egyp- 
tian worship be received by the Persian people. 

The essential error of the Persian creed consisted in this, 
that acknowledging, as was fit, the existence of a power 
hostile to light and goodness, they did not extend their views 
so far as to perceive the insignificance of this power, how- 
ever great its influence may appear to he both on men and 
on nature, when compared with that of the Deity, against 
which it contends ; in short, that this creed acknowledges 
two original principles — a good Godhead and an evil. 

Several speculators of our modern times have been so 
much impressed with this resemblance between the faith of 
the Persians and that of the Hebrews, that they have found 
it incapable of being denied, and confined all their exertions 
to explaining it. Tliey have said that the Hebrews, during 
their ^seventy years' captivit}?- in the dominions of the great 
king, borrowed much, or rather perhaps learned all for the 
first time, from the Persians among whom they lived. This 
wilful perversion must appear in its proper colours to the 
mere historical inquirer ; he will at once perceive the absur- 
dity of representing the connection between Persians and 
Hebrews as something so young and modern, which he can 
learn both from the evidence of the two nations and from 
the nature of the thing itself, that in truth that connection 
was a matter of much higher antiquity, and is one deserv- 
ing of much more serious consideration than the authors 
of this superficial hypothesis were aware. Besides, the 
conception of it has arisen from a mistaken view of the 
whole question at issue. The superiority of the Hebrews 
over all the other Asiatic peoples consists solely and simply 
m this, — that they alone preserved that original truth and 
higher knowledge which was intrusted to them, pure and 
unfalsified, with the strongest faith, in blind confidence and 
submission, like a precious pledge, or a possession often 



HISTORY OF JOB. , 11 

locked up against their o^^ti use. and so transmitted to poste- 
rity unbroken and unimpaired : while among all other na- 
tions these things were either altogether forgotten or aban- 
doned, or mixed up with the wildest fictions and the most 
odious errors and abominations. This, it may be thought, 
is a merely negative sort of pre-eminence : whatever it is, it 
belongs entirely to the sacred writings of the Hebrews, and 
in particular to those of Moses. In these writings, what- 
ever is meant to be a practical law to the nation, is expressed 
with the greatest accuracy and precision. That part of the 
commencement of the narrative which regards the internal 
man is also universally intelligible, in so much that it can 
be easily comprehended by the most ignorant, by a savage. 
or by a child almost as soon as he has the power of speech. 
All that regards universal history, the ramifications of our 
race, and the early fate of men. (so far as they have any 
connection with our religious belief) is most clear and per- 
spicuous. Whatever, on the other side, can serve only as 
an amusement of our curiosity, is wrapped by Moses in ob- 
scurity and mvstery. What he tells us with hieroglyphical 
brevity concerning the ten fii^st fathers of the primitive world, 
has been spun out by the Persians, the Indians, and the Chi- 
nese, into whole volumes of m\'tholog\'. and been invested 
with a crowd of half poetical, half metaphysical traditions. 
The praise of a more ardent and poetical fanc5^ and of more 
inventive metaphysics, as well as of a deeper acquaintance 
with nature and her powers, we may easily grant to the 
Persians. In all those ends. also, to which these are sub- 
servient, as also in astronomy, the imitative arts, or in gene- 
ral in Avhatever became an object of great study among any 
of the other oriental nations, the inferiority- of the Hebrews 
may also be achnitted. But if we are perplexed with any 
of those dark questions which make man tremble to look 
into futurity, where, among any other nation shall we find 
such answers as the Hebrews can point to us in the narra- 
tive of the sorrows of Job 1 a piece of writing, which, consi 
dered merely as such, is without doubt one of the most cha- 
racteristic and sublime which has come down to us from 
the ancient world. The peculiar faith and confidence in 
God which were the inheritance of the Jews, are expressed 
with less of the Mosaic mystery as we advance in the sacred 



fl2 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SCRIPTURES. 

volume^ and appear in their full light in the Psalms of David, 
the allegories of Solomon, and the Prophesies of Isaiah. These 
works, indeed, set them forth with a splendour and a subli- 
mity which, considered merely as poetry, excite our wonder, 
and disdain all comparison with any other compositions; 
they form a fountain of fiery and godhke inspiration, of 
which the greatest of modern poets have never been wt ary 
of drinking, which has suggested to them their noblest 
images, and animated them for their most magnificent flights. 
Nevertheless the clearness of the Scriptures is ever a pro- 
phetical clearness, veiled in some portion of mystery, and 
pointing to futurity for its perfect explication. Upon the 
whole, the flourishing period of the HebreAvs was of short 
duration ; the Mosaic laws and rules of life were never en- 
tirely reduced to practice, for the people were at all times in- 
capable of comprehending the purposes of their divine Law- 
giver. The sanctuary, after being for many years tossed 
about with the changeful destinies of a chastened people, ap- 
peared under Solomon in the shape of a temple. But this 
was soon destroyed through the guilt of the people, and al- 
though, under th<. protection of the Persian monarch, its 
walls were rebuilt and its vessels collected, the flourishing 
period of the Hebrew spirit was for ever gone. Like the 
Romans, the Jews also were incapable of resisting the over- 
whelming torrent of the opinions, education, and language 
of the Greeks. If we look merely to the poetical part of 
the Persian religion, its resemblance is much greater in that 
respect to the northern than to the Grecian theology. The 
same spiritual veneration of nature, of light, of fire, and of 
the other pure elements which are set forth in the laws and 
liturgies of Zendavesta, breathe in a form more entirely 
poetical out of the Edda of our ancestors. The same sort 
of opinions concerning those spirits which rule and fill na- 
ture, have given rise to the same sort of fictions concerning 
giants, dwarfs, and other extraordinary beings, both in the 
old northern sages, and in the still more ancient poetry of 
the Persians. 

The high antiquity of the Indian mythology is in the main 
sufliciently manifest from the ancient monuments of Indian 
architecture which are still in existence. These monuments 
are, in their gigantic size and in their general formation, ex- 



HEROIC POEMS OF THE INDIANS. 113 

tremely similar to those of the Egyptians, and it is difficult 
to suppose that their antiquity is not equally remote. All 
these monuments, both the gigantic works of Egypt covered 
over with hieoroglyphics, the fragments of the city of Per- 
sepolis with their various shapes and unintelligible inscrip- 
tions,'and lastly those Indian rocks, which we may still see 
hewn into the symbols of an obscure mythology, have an 
equal tendency to carry us back to a state of things from 
which we feel ourselves to be prodigiously removed both in 
time and in manners. We may almost say that as the tra- 
ditions of every people go back to an age of heroes, and as 
nature too has had her time of ancient greatness — a time of 
mighty revolutions whereof we can still perceive the traces, 
and gigantic animals of which we are every day digging up 
the remains ; even so both civilisation and poetry have had 
their time also of the wonderful and the gigantic. And we 
may add that, in that time, ail those conceptions, fictions, and 
presentiments, which were afterwards unfolded into poetry. 
and fashioned into philosophy and literature, all the know- 
ledge and all the errors of our species, astronomy, chrono- 
logy, biography, history, theology, and legislation, were em- 
T)odied not in writing, as among us puny men, but in those 
enormous works of sculpture of which some fragments still 
remain for our inspection. ' Of the two great heroic poems 
of the Indians which are still in existence, the one treats of 
the achievements of Ramo the conqueror of that southern 
and more savage part of the Peninsula which lies nearest to 
the island of Ceylon. Ramo is the favourite hero of the na- 
tion ; he is represented in all the majesty and fulness of 
youthful strength, beauty, nobility, and love, but for the most 
part unfortunate, and in exile, exposed to unlooked for dan- 
gers, and oppressed with sorrows and afflictions. This is 
the same character which, however diversified by local co- 
louring, is to be found in all beautiful and remarkable tra- 
ditions of whatever nation and under whatever climate. In 
the bloom of youth and beauty, on the very summit of vie 
tory. power, and joy, there often seizes irresistibly on the 
soul of man, a deep sense of the fleetingness and the nothing- 
ness of that existence which he calls his life. This heroic 
poem of Ramo appears to me in the state in which it is slill 
to be found, and from the specimens of it which I h'ave mv- 
10* 



114 DOCTRINE OF METEMPSYCHOSIS. 

self examined, to be a work of great beauty, holding some- 
what of a middle place between the simplicity and clearness 
of Homer, and that profusion of fancy by which the writings 
of the Persian poets are distinguished. The other great In 
dian heroic poem which embraces the whole circle of their 
mythology, the Mohabharot, celebrates an universal strug- 
gle, in which gods, giants, and heroes, were all araied against 
each other. In some similar fictions respecting a war be- 
tween gods and heroes, almost every people, which possesses 
any ancient traditions, has embodied its mysterious recollec- 
tions of a wilder and more active state of nature, and the 
tragical suppression of an earlier world of greatness and he- 
roism. However lately both of these Indian epics, the Ra- 
mayon and the Mohabharot, may have been elaborated into 
their present form, the essence of their poetry is unquestion- 
ably old, for it corresponds in all respects with those sculp- 
tured rocks and monuments which are still the objects of the 
hereditary veneration of the Hindoos. 

When we begin to examine in what respects the doctrines 
of India first acquired any influence in Europe, we shall 
naturally have our attention directed, in the first place, to the 
remarkable dogma of Metempsychosis, which was said to 
have been introduced into Greece by Pythagoras. Among 
the Greeks, this doctrine remained at all times foreign and 
unpopular. Among the Indians, on the contrary, it seems 
to have been believed from the earliest periods, wherein we 
can perceive any trace of the existence of their nation. We 
might even say, that not only all the opinions, but also all 
the manners, of the Indians, are at this hour built upon this 
doctrine. In India, it is the first article of faith, which it 
was not in Egypt, where, although Pythagoras may very 
probably have heard of it, it could never have acquired any 
regular belief or authority, unless I am extremely mistaken 
in what I imagine must be collected from the very peculiai 
treatment of the dead which was prevalent among the Egyp- 
tians. A certain almost painfu-l aversion, and religious hor- 
ror, for the bodies of the dead, is so deeply implanted in all 
men, that nothing is more difficult than to diminish in u& the 
influence of this feeling. The prevailing modes of treating 
the dead among different nations, are not only .vorthy oi 
great consideration as testimonies of their modes oi think 



EMBALMING OF THE EGYPTIANS. 115 

ing-, arid degrees of civilization : they are, in general, over 
and above all this, very intimately connected with their se- 
cret impressions and feelings of religion. It may be worth 
our while to pause over them for a moment. The mode of 
incremation, which was most followed by the Greeks, is one 
~of very high antiquity. It is one which is very expressive 
of feeling, and one which has something very pleasing in it, 
at least for the imagination. The spirit of life ascends to 
heaven freely and purely among the flames ; the earthy part 
remains behind in the ashes, and furnishes to the survivors 
a memorial of the departed. The most singular, and per- 
haps the most elevating of all usages, was adopted by the 
followers of Zoroaster, and is still preserved in Thibet. 
From a mistaken idea that the pure elements of earth or fire 
would be contaminated by being made the instruments of 
dissolution, the corpse is laid upon a platform erected for the 
purpose, and enclosed with massy walls, and there aban- 
doned as a prey to the wolves and the vultures. Interment, 
the mode adopted by those who profess our religion, if it be 
attended with proper care and attention, is, after all, perhaps 
the most agreeable to nature. We restore to the earth what 
was originally derived from it, and intrust to her motherly 
bosom the earthly body, as a seed sown for futurity. When 
we know that the body itself is actually lying there, we have 
a more easy, as well as a more impressive, conviction of the 
repose of the soul, than when we are obliged to entomb our 
feelings in a cenotaph, or see the body of our friend reduced 
at once to the simple nature of the elements. The remarka- 
ble embalming of the Egyptian mummies is, in my appre 
hension, irrecoricileable with a belief in the Indian doctrine 
of transmigration. That usage seems rather to set forth an 
indistinct feeling, that this apparently dead matter is still im- 
portant to the man — some mistaken and imperfect presenti- 
ment, that the bond between the soul and matter is not alto- 
gether dissolved, and shall yet one day be restored — that even 
this matter shall have its portion in immortality, and be again 
animated and awaked. Others have explained this Egyp- 
tian usage as if it proceeded from a material way of think- 
ing, as if those who disbelieve in the immortality of the soul 
would be the most anxious to guard against the total disso- 
lution of the body. 



116 CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS. 

The following appears to me to be a very natural suppo- 
sition. In the numerous secret associations which were 
spread abroad over Egj^pt, there prevailed, without doubt, 
many opinions altogether irreconcileable with the popular 
belief, which was nowhere, indeed, more superstitious than 
among the Egyptians ; here and there, it is probable, these 
opinions contained light and truth carefully kept secret from 
the uninitiated ; at all events, they were numerous and dis- 
cordant. Pythagoras might easily have been taught in 
Egypt a doctrine which was originally Indian, and which, 
in the country to which it had been transplanted, was neither 
powerful nor universal. 

The Indian doctrine of the transmigration of souis de- 
pended, nevertheless, on the radical notion, that all beings 
derive their origin from God, and are placed in this world 
in an altogether degraded and unfortunate state of imperfec- 
tion, from which state all beings, and in particular men, 
must either decline gradually into conditions of yet lower 
degradation, or rise gradually to conditions of purity more 
accordant with their divine original, according as they give 
ear to the vicious or to the virtuous suggestions of their na- 
ture. This conception was, at all events, compatible enough 
with the leading doctrines of that Platonic philosophy — 
whose general accordance with the oriental opinions, and 
the influence which these had on the intellectual character 
of the Europeans, shall be the subject of my next discourse. 



LECTURE V. 



LITERATURE, OPINIONS, AND INTELLECTUAL HABITS OF THE INDIANS 
RETROSPECT TO EUROPE. 



The most remote country, towards the east, of which the 
Greeks had any defined knowledge (and their acquaintance 
with it was at the best, extremely imperfect.) was India 
They more than once overrun it as conquerors, and at one 
time possessed, for a very short period, something like a fixed 
dominion over a part of its territory. The coasts, and those 
other parts of the country which were most accessible, were 
explored and examined by them in a regular voyage of dis- 
covery. The commercial intercourse with Alexandria and 
Grecian-Egypt was one of long duration, and, without doubt, 
attended with a very considerable flux and reflux of intellec- 
tual communication. With China, however, and the more 
distant countries of the east, neither the Greeks, nor in gen- 
eral, any of the ancient nations of the west, had any direct 
mtercourse ; their knowledge of these regions Avas, of conse- 
quence, altogether vague and unsatisfactory. 

I have already given what I conceive to be the most 
probable explanation of the manner in which the orignally 
Indian doctrine of the transmigration of souls was introduced 
into Greece, through the medium of Egypt, by Pythagoras. 
The Indian trade is of such antiquity, that it ascends beyond 
the historical records of any civihzed nation. Alexander, 
and after him the Ptolemies, above all Philadelphus, gave 
to that trade a regular direction, which created the pros- 
perity and wealth of Eg^^pt under the rule of the Grecian 
d^masty. Even under the Romans, this trade still con- 
tinued to follow the same channel, which is, indeed, by far 
ihe nearest and the most natural, and which, with many va- 
riations and many interruptions, was still in the main ad- 
hered to, dow^n to the time when the circumnav7gation ot 



118 THE HINDOOS. 

Africa opened up a new path to the adventurers of the west. 
But it is difficult to suppose that Alexander and the Ptole- 
mies should have so easily regulated and confined this trade 
to the Red Sea and Alexandria, unless private enterprise 
had before ascertained the practicability, and even demon- 
strated the superior advantages of that channel. The old 
connection which subsisted between India and Egypt is also 
sufficiently manifest from the remarkable and elsewhere un- 
kno^vn system of castes being equally adopted in both coun- 
tries, and the strong general coincidence which may be ob- 
served between the mythologies of the two nations. In our 
own days, this ancient relation between these two peoples 
and their theological belief, received a very striking and 
sensible exemplification. When, in the course of the last 
war, an Indian army was brought by the English govern- 
ment into Egypt, those old monuments, whose gigantic pro- 
portions are ever regarded with undiminished curiosity and 
wonder by Europeans, made on the minds of the Hindoo 
soldiers an impression no less powerful, though proceeding 
from a very different cause. They fell on their faces in 
supplication, and believed that they had again found the 
deities of their native land. 

The very people of the^ Hindoos^ with their manners and 
ideas all belonging to a remoter world, with their ancieni 
usages, to which they cling with so much bigotry, and with 
their arrangement of life, so widely different from that ol 
any other nation, may be themselves regarded as a living 
monument, the one surviving ruin of another state of man. 
Their present degradation is an object not of contempt, but 
of sympathy and compassion. 

When Alexander made his incursion from Persia into 
the north of India, (a path which, before and since his time, 
has been the highroad of so man}^ conquerors.) the remark- 
able spectacle of such a people must have made no small 
impression on the minds of the Greeks. Their wonder 
must have been no less than that of the first modern Euro- 
peans, who found their way to that long sought land. Th(j 
Greeks found in India, as they had before done in Egypt, 
not a little that was new to them, and foreign to their man- 
ners, but they were not repelled by an altogether irrecon- 
cileable superstition, as among the Persians and the Jews 



BOOKS OF THE HINDOOS. 119 

Here, as in Egypt, they found themselves still surrounded 
with the well known symbols of a poetical polytheism, 
which, in all radical matters manifested its kindred with 
their own. They even recognized, or thought they could 
recognize, the same deities which they had been wont to 
worship, although concealed under some considerable varia- 
tions of form and colouring : and they shewed, in the most 
striking manner, their faith in this coincidence, by the 
names of the Indian Hercules, and the Indian Bacchus, 
which were afterwards so common among them. They 
seized upon the apparent resemblances with the enthusiasm 
which was natural to them, and traced them with that keen- 
ness of penetration which was no less peculiarly their own. 
It was, indeed, a ruling passion of the Greeks to magnify 
the wonders of all that they had seen : and of their talents 
for poetical exaggeration, we have many specimens in their 
accounts of those countries which were first laid open to their 
inspection by the conquests of Alexander. But we must 
not forget that many things which were looked upon as en- 
tirely fabulous by those ancient readers who perused the 
historians of Alexander, have, in the course of modern dis- 
coveries, received the most perfect confirmation ; exactly as 
has been the case with some of those yet more early accounts 
of Ctesias, which were regarded as the most improbable of 
fictions by his ignorant cotemporaries at home. If we makt; 
allowance for many natural enough mistakes, and apparent 
contradictions with regard to particular points, the descrip- 
tion which the Greeks have left of India, agrees, in the 
main, very strikingly both with the present aspect of that 
country, and with the best sources of ancient information to 
which we have otherwise access ; insomuch, that each may 
reciprocally serve as a commentary on the other. The same 
Indian recluses, whose peculiarities are every day described 
to us with the utmost accuracy by missionaries and Eng- 
lishmen, with whose doctrines, and singular mode of life, 
all the books and poems of the Hindoos are filled, these 
_giimnpsophists were found by the soldiers of Alexander ex- 
actly as they are to be seen at present, and excited in them 
so much astonishment, that they invented a ne\v word to 
describe them. The Greeks found two ruling sects of phi- 
losophers in India, the Brachmans dii-idiihe Samaneans, ana 



120 THE BRAHMINS. 

it is still easy to trace with clearness, in the old works and 
fountain-heads of ancient Indian learning, two separate sys- 
tems, both originating among the Hindoos. The one of 
these, indeed, which was more recently introduced into India 
itself, although it endeavoured to keep as near as possible to 
the ancient doctrines, yet, as it was essentially hostile to the 
distinction of castes, and the exclusive authority of the Brah- 
mins, it was never received into general favour, and has left 
only traces which it requires the skill of an antiquarian to 
discover. Its unpopularity in India, perhaps, contributed 
not a little to its extensive reception in Thibet, China, and 
the whole middle and northern districts of Asia. Even the 
word Samenean, by which the Greeks designated the one 
of the two sects which they found in India, is pure In- 
dian, and is expressive of that internal equability and still- 
ness of mind which is still talked of as the first step to per- 
fection in all the ethical systems of the Indian devotees. 
The name of Schaman, which is so widely diffused over 
the whole middle and north of Asia, and universally ap- 
plied to denote the priests and sorcerers of these regions, 
is evidently derived from the same origin with that Indian 
word which was first brought into Europe by the followers 
of Alexander. 

The older doctrine of India is that which prescribes the 
worship of Brahma, and his prophet and spirit, creative 
thought and lawgiver. Menu. The fabulous chronology 
of the Brahmins is carried by them even into their literature; 
they ascribe all their oldest works to persons entirely fabu- 
lous, and carry them back to an antiquity which is altogether 
poetical. Since some European scholars, in the enthusiasm 
of their first admiration, have not scrupled to admit of this 
fabulous antiquity, it is the less wonderful that others have 
gone into the opposite extreme, and treated the antiquity of 
all Indian works as a fable. It is difficult to say which ex- 
treme is the most absurd. The code of Menu, translated 
into English by Sir William Jones, is of all those Indian 
works which have been faithfully rendered into the Euro- 
pean languages, the most aricient, the most authentic, and 
the most entire. This book of laws is one oflhose which, 
after the fashion of remote antiquity, embraces the whole of 
human life, and contains not only a system of morals, and 



TRANSMIGRATION OF SOULS. 12J 

A representation of manners, but also a poetica> account of 
God and spirits, and a history of the creation of the world 
and man. In the same way that the Greeks of the most 
ancient period, before the invention of prose writing, were 
accustomed to compose all their histories and narratives, all 
their books of instruction, their laws, and. in short, whatever 
they wrote, in plain verses, at times, indeed, entirely desti- 
tute of all poetical ornament ; so this ancient Indian law 
book is composed in a measure and distich of the most pri- 
mitive simplicity. Many of its maxims are full of meaning-, 
and several passages are extremely poetical and sublime. 
That strange system of life is every where depicted and pre- 
scribed, which, as I have already said, is throughout depen- 
dent on the idea of the transmigration of souls. Perhaps 
imong no other ancient people did the doctrine of the immorta- 
lity of the soul, and the belief in a future state of existence, ever 
acquire such a mastery over all principles and all feelings, 
and exert such influence over all the judgments and all the 
actions of men, as among the Indians. While, in the poe- 
tical creed of the Greeks, the world of shades occupies only 
a dark and remote place in the back-ground, and leaves all 
the hopes and enjoyments of life to be concentrated upon the 
present, among the Indians the place of true prominence and 
reality is assigned to the future, and the earthly life is re- 
presented as at best an obscure introduction to that of hea- 
ven ; every thing is viewed as preparatory to another state 
of things, and the present is every where depicted as dark 
and unsatisfying. Whatever is good in the present life is, 
according to the Indian opinions only a foretaste of futurity ; 
whatever evils we encounter are the consequences and the 
punishment of sins committed in some former state of being. 
The nearest bonds of love and nature derive from these 
doctrines a new force. Father and son are in their inner- 
most being so intimately connected, that even death has no 
power to dissolve the union of their destinies. Marriage 
becomes a more sacred tie when we suppose that its endu- 
rance is not limited to a single life. It is this spirit which 
breathes over all the fables, and poetry, and institutions of 
the Indians, and which constitutes the true characteristic of 
!heir opinions. From the descriptive poems of the Indians, 
we must seek to gather what influence those opinions had 
11 



J 22 IMMOLATION OF WIDOWS. 

on human life, ani all its relations and feelings ; what son 
of poetry, and what sort of feeling of the lovely und the 
beautiful, were produced among the Indians by the adoption 
of ideas to us so foreign and unaccountable. The first things 
which strike us in the Indian poetry are, that tender feeling 
of solitude, and the all-animated world of plants, which is so 
engagingly represented in the dramatic poem of the Sokun- 
tola : and those charming pictures of female truth and con- 
stancy, as wel. as of the beauty and loveliness of infantine 
nature, which are still more conspicuous in the older epic 
version of the same Indian legend.* Neither can we ob- 
serve, without wonder and admiration, that depth of moral 
feeling with which the poet styles conscience " the solitary 
sc^r in the heart, from whose eye nothing is hid;" and 
which leads him to represent sin as something so incapable 
of concealment, that every transgression is not only knowm 
CO conscience and all the gods, but felt with a sympathetic 
shudder by those elements themselves which we call inani- 
mate, by the sun, the moon, the fire, the air, the heaven, the 
earth, the flood, and the deep, as a crying outrage agains* 
nature and derangement of the universe. We cannot so 
easily come to enjoy the descriptions of the fearful deaths 
of the Indian penitents, even although these are throughout 
diversified with many touches of tenderness and feeling, or 
the still more common narratives of the immolation of wi- 
dows. I may perhaps be pardoned for sayino; a few words 
concerning that most singular usage of the Hindoos, — one 
which, Avhen the death is altogether voluntary, constitutes 
suicide; when it is the consequence of half-compulsatory 
exhortations, constitutes human sacrifice ; and which is dou- 
bly terrible when it breaks the ties which connect the mother 
with her children. Europeans have not as yet been able to 
put a stop to this practice within the limits of their govern- 
ment ; at least only a few 3^ears have elapsed since instances 
of it occurred even in the immediate neio-hbourhood of Cal- 
cutta The chief principle of the English administration in 
India is, indeed, nothing else than to rule the Hindoos in a 
manner entirely conformed to their own customs, usages, 
and native laws, and by doing so — whatever instances of in- 

* Tran=:lated bv the antlnr, in his bnnk of " TJ^or die spraeh und 
welsheit der Indfer:' § 303—324 



CAUSES OF THE SYSTEM. 123 

dividual oppression may have occurred — they have, in fact, 
been the benefactors of the Hindoos, in delivering them 
from the persecutions of Mahometan intolerance. The more 
the English territory is extended in India, the more neces- 
sary does this systematic forbearance for all Indian usages 
become; especially since a trifling violation of some pre- 
judices of the military excited the alarming disturbance of 
Veilore. It is easy to see why this forbearance has been 
extended even to the blameable extremity of sanctioning hu- 
man sacrifices and incremations. These are, indeed, but too 
likely to become more and more frequent, as the natives, (at- 
tached as they are to their customs with the most slavish 
bigotry, and watching over their preservation with the most 
jealous solicitude) come to be more sensible of the weight 
which they derive from their numbers. The Brahmins, 
too, are, without doubt, fond of nourishing the fanaticism of 
the people by these tragic spectacles. 

It has been often said that the practice originated in the 
operation of jealousy, and a regular plan for the degradation 
of the female sex. But I am much at a loss to conceive 
how this can agree with that high reverence for females 
which is every where inculcated in the laws, and exempli 
fied in the poems of the Hindoos. Besides the idea of de- 
pressing and despising the female sex is one entirely at va- 
riance even with the present opinions w'hich prevail among 
them ; although, indeed, it is not improbable, that the exam- 
ple of their Mahometan masters may have in some degree 
corrupted the purity of their ancient manners. Others have, 
and I think more happily, considered this custom of volun- 
tary burning as akin to those death-sacrifices, by no means 
uncommon among savage, and particularly among warlike 
peoples ; in these the object was to furnish the departed ru- 
ler or hero with whatever he might be supposed to need in 
another life, such as his horse, his armour, and his slaves. 
Sometimes also, in the agony of sorrow, the friends or the 
beloved of the hero plunged into the same grave, or ascend- 
ed the same funeral pile with his remains, that so all that 
was dear to him in life might be swallowed up in one com- 
mon ruin with the illustrious dead. Even in India these 
apparently voluntary, but often rehictant sacrifices of women, 
took place originally only among those of the warlike caste 



124 INDIAN MYTHOLOGY. 

'J 'hey were never universal : in the ancient times they must 
have been exceedingly'- rare, otherwise they could scarcely 
have been celebrated as they are, as specimens of heroic and 
admirable devotion. The undo^bting expectation of an im- 
mediate and personal reunion in another life, must have 
greatly contributed to render this sacrifice possible ; but it 
must always be difficult to imagine how such as were 
mothers could venture upon it, especially when we remem- 
ber, that in all representations of Hindoo life, the devoted 
affection of mothers for their children is described as being, 
if possible, carried even farther than is usual among our- 
selves. 

Of all Indian poems, so far as we are as yet acquainted 
with them, that of Sokunto la (which has been translated 
with the most scrupulous exactness by Jones) is the work 
which gives the best idea of Indian poetry.; it is a speaking 
example of that sort of beauty which is peculiar to the 
spirit of their fictions. Here we see not indeed either the 
high and dignified arrangement, or the earnestness and 
strength of style, which distinguish the tragedies of the 
<arreeks. Bui all is animated with a deep and lovely ten- 
derness of feeling ; an air of sweetness and beauty is diffus- 
ed over the whole. If the enjoyment of solitude and mus- 
ing, the delight which is excited by the beauty of nature, 
above all, the world of plants, are here and there enlarged 
upon with a gorgeous profusion of images, this is but the 
clothing of innocence. The composition is throughout 
clear and unlaboured, and the language is full of a graceful 
and dignified simplicity. 

The account which is given in the Indian mythology, of 
the invention of poetry and the Indian rhythm, is entirely 
in harmony with the spirit of poetry such as this. The 
sage Balmiki, to whom one of the great heroic poems (the 
Kamayon) is ascribed, saw, as it is said, two lovers Hving 
happily together in a beautiful wood, when of a sudden the 
youth was murdered by a treacherous assault. In the midst 
of his sorrow at this spectacle, and his compassion for the 
lamentations of the deserted maiden, he broke out into words 
which were rhythmical ; and so were elegy and the laws 
of versification discovered. The whole poetry of the In- 
dians is full of inward love, tenderness, and eiegy. Such 



TRANSLATIONS OF SIR WILLIAM JONES. 125 

indeed was the fit mode of telling the story of Balmiki, — 
how Ramo, the favourite hero of India, wandered in the 
wilderness — how he was dragged from his beloved Sita — 
how she sought for him long and in vain — and how they 
were at last reunited. But the Indian poetry is rich also in 
heroic and lofty representation, and the joyful and brilliant 
side of life has its full share in the pictures of that compre- 
hensive poem, which is compared in the introductory hymn 
to a mighty lake. " The hills of Balmiki arise out of the 
lake of Ramo, which is altogether free from impurities ; it 
ibounds in clear streams, and there are bright flowers upon 
Its waters." But in none of the Indian poems is there so 
much of joy and the ardent inspiration of love as in the 
great pastoral of Gita Govindo. The hero of this poem is 
Krishnoo, when he (like the Apollo of the Greeks) wan- 
dered "orf the earth as a shepherd, attended by nine shep- 
herdesses. The composition, however, is not so much an 
idyll, as a series of dithyrambic love songs, whose high 
lyrical beauties (whether the fault may be in Sir William 
Jones or in the English language) are by no means preserv- 
ed in the translation. The import was perhaps too bold to 
be susceptible of any literal rendering. As it is, Jones has 
given us only a faint shadow of the power of the original. 
Even this, however, is of great value to the lover of poetry, 
for he may easily draw from it some idea of the beauty of 
the Indian imagination. The well known book of fables, 
Hipqtadesa, on the contrary, is rendered with the utmost 
accuracy. It is the first fountain from which all books of 
fables are derived. Its narrative is distinguished by the most 
artless simplicity and clearness, but interspersed, here and 
there, with profound maxims, and many beautiful fragments 
of the more ancient poems. The narrative is, indeed, meant 
only to serve as a vehicle for this anthology of poetica. 
images and moral observations. The whole is admirably 
calculated to rouse and exercise the reflection of youth ; 
but it contains so much of what is repugnant to our ideas, 
that we cannot, in fact, be fair judges of the effect which it 
must produce. ^., 

The translations of Wilkins, Jones, and those who have 
adopted their method, are, upon the whole, extremely faith- 
ful Of the few versions which have appeared in the French 
11* 



126 HISTORICAL WORKS OF INDIA. 

language, the most are only slight extracts ; and those 
which do set before us the substance of entire old Indian 
works, are never executed from the original language, but 
from translations into some of the modern Hindoo dialects, 
so that in the course of the double process many blunders 
and omissions, and not a few barbarous interpolations and 
additions, are to be complained of This is particularly the 
case with the work called Bagavadam, the only one of the 
eighteen Puranas w^hich has as yet been translated. Other 
works, the compositions of men -who were either altogether 
unacquainted with the ancient language, or who w^ere inca- 
pable of selection, contain only the substance of oral com- 
munications of the Brahmins, and extracts from older or 
later wa'itings mingled together without taste or discernment. 
Roger belongs to this class, and many works of the older 
travellers, as also the collection which has more lately been 
published from the papers of Poller. All the works of Ma- 
hometan authors which relate to Indian affairs must be used 
with great caution. It is true that they are extremely valu- 
able when they contain historical representations of the ac- 
tual state of India, and the remarks of eye-witnesses, as, for 
instance, the description of India, which was executed at the 
command of the Emperor Akbar, in the Ayeen Akbery. 
But wherever the Mussulman authors treat of the Hindoo 
philosophy, whether in the w^ay of analysis or of translation, 
we must be very much upon our guard. Their mode of 
criticism is childish; their mode of translating is coarse, 
blundering, and not unfrequently unintelligible : but, above 
all, they are utterly incapable of feeling or comprehending 
the true nature and import of opinions so different from their 
own. For these reasons one of the very worst sources of 
information with respect to Indian antiquity- is the Ouknek- 
hat ; it is indeed almost entirely useless, and so much the 
more w^orthless because we possess many better and authen- 
tic monuments of the same sort. The quantity of materials 
is immense; and the Brahmins have a passion for ascribing 
a fabulous antiquity to all works which in any way relate 
to their mythology and their system ; so that in truth no 
study requires more cautron and discrimination than that of 
the literature of Hindostan. 

In many Indian works there occur copious notices both 



INDIAN MONUMENTS. 127 

of Alexander the Great and of Sandrocottus, who succeeded 
^Poriis as his Indian Lieutenant, — of these the age is ascer- 
tained from internal evidence. In others we can perceive 
allusions which shew them to have been written about the 
time of the first Mahometan conquests. But here one should 
be very careful not to come to a hasty decision concerning 
the authenticity or age of whole works, merel}'' from meet- 
ing with particular phrases or sentences which may have 
been interpolated by some later hand. 

The Indian works are destitute both of the advantages 
and the disadvantages which they might have derived from 
being handed down by oral tradition in the manner which 
has rendered us so very dubious as to the original formation 
of the great old works of Grecian genius. It is scarcely pos- 
sible to doubt that the oldest of these were commitr d to writ- 
ing as soon as they were composed, for there ex"st in India 
specimens of sculptured writing whose antiquity is at least 
as great as that of any Indian poems now extant. 

It is very remarkable that among the many Indian monu- 
ments which are decorated with sculpture (and almost their 
whole mythology is to be seen hewn out in rocks,) there 
should be found no hieroglyphics. In the Phcenician alpha- 
bet, and Jhose derived from it, (including the alphabets of the 
west of Asia and of Europe, which have all one common 
origin,) the shapes and even the names of the letters, prove 
beyond all doubt that they were formed out of the hiero- 
glyphics which preceded them. The Indian alphabet ex- 
hibits no such traces ; nay, its construction renders it ex- 
tremely improbable that it was derived from any similar 
origin. This is a circumstance on many accounts worthy 
of much attention, in particular when we reflect that by the 
concurrence of all historical testimonies the use of decimal 
ciphers had its commencement in Hindostan. That was, 
without all doubt, next to alphabet writing, the greatest dis- 
covery of human genius, and the honour of it remains un- 
disputed with the Indians. If, however, the Indian works 
have been more fortunate than the Greek in escaping the 
dangers inseparable from compositions handed do^vn for 
ages by recitation, they have on the other hand been so 
much the more exposed to the dangers of wilfu falsification 
Euid additions. The more apparent these are in some works. 



128 THE BHOGOVOTGITA. 

the more are those to be prized in which we cannot detect 
any traces of them. The Puranas (a sort of mythological 
leg-ends) contain the greatest number of suspicious circum- 
stances. The Avorks which are apparently most free from 
all defects of this kind are those heroic poems of which I 
have spoken above. Perhaps of all known books there is 
none which carries with it more convincing proofs both of 
high antiquity and perfect integrity than the law book of 
Menu. Whoever has any acquaintance with researches and 
doubts of this sort, will feel, even in reading the translation, 
that he has before him a genuine monument of antiquity. 
Sir William Jones (the greatest orientalist of the eighteenth 
century, and one of the most accomplished scholars to which 
England has ever given birth) gives it as his opinion that 
this book is of an age somewhere between Homer and the 
Twelve Tables of the Romans. I think he has supported 
this opinion with very convincing arguments, and I have 
indeed no doubt, that both the book of Menu and some 
others might have been seen by Alexander the Great in a 
state not materially different from that in which we possess 
them. 

After the code of Menu, among books valuable as guides 
to the knowledge of the Indian opinions, the first place be- 
longs to that ^ didactic poem,- which has been translated by 
Wilkins, under the name of the Bhogovotgita. This con- 
tains an account of the modern system of Indian philosophy, 
a system originally of the same nature with the doctrine of 
that other religious sect or party which the Greeks found in 
India, and called, by way of distinguishing them from the 
Brachmans, by the name of ^auavaiov. It is, in truth, only 
an episode of one of the great heroic poems, the Mokabharot, 
but it is throughout philosophical, and its contents are such 
that it may be considered as a complete epitome of Indian 
mystics. It is still in great repute, and is, in fact, an abstract 
of the prevalent opinions of the present day. It is worthy 
of remark that the deities chiefly praised and exalted in this 
book are ones in a great measure unknown to the ancient 
law-book, or at least occupy in it a much more humble si^ua 
lion ; there prevails, indeed, in the Bhogovotgita a very evi- 
dent tendency to combat on all occasions the more ancient 
system, the vedas, and the whole doctrine of polytheism. Its 



INDIAN RECLUSES. 129 

doctrine is one of an absolute divine unity, in which all dif- 
ferences disappear, and into whose abyss all things are 
gathered. Yet whenever mention is made of mythology 
the belief inculcated is that of a poetical pantheism. Not 
unlike the New Platonic philosophy, which, although 
breathing the same spirit of unity, lent itself to the cause of 
external polytheism, in the hope of infusing a new life into 
the superannuated superstitions of the Greeks. The wor- 
ship of Vishnoo and Krishnoo, which is now the prevailing 
one in Hindostan, difTers very little, so far at least as it is 
here described, from the religion of Budha and Fo, which 
was, as we know, established in Thibet and China, during 
the first century of the Christian era, and which has been 
so diffused over the middle and northern countries of Asia, 
by the preaching of the Schamans. The principal differ- 
ence consists in this, that the worshippers of Vishnoo have 
found themselves obliged to retain the system of castes, 
while it has been long since entirely abolished by those of 
Budha. The recluses or Gymnosophists, which appeared 
so remarkable to the Greeks, belong to both of the two sects 
of Indian philosophers, and act upon principles equall}^ ac- 
knowledge by them both. Their retirement from the world, 
their mode of life, akogether devoted to contemplation, even 
their violent penitences, cannot fail to recal our recollection 
very forcibly to the first Christian recluses of Egypt. But 
there is one great point of difference between them. That 
man must in a certain sense abstract himself from th>"> world 
and its concerns, in order to be able to live only for himself, 
is a thought so natural, that upon it were founded all the 
systems of Grecian ethics. More inquirers than one have 
been very fond of observing the coincidence between the life 
of entire abstraction and uncitizenship recommended by some 
of the Greek sects, and that adopted by the Christian recluses. 
Not only Plato, but even Aristotle himself, (the most prac- 
tical of philosophers,) is inclined to give to the life of retire- 
ment, and meditation devoted to internal energies, a decided 
piefereiice over that of external exertion. But even if we 
should be disposed to admit that the individual recluse may 
thus be furnished with a good opportunity for cultivating his 
own intellect, there is no question but the whole society must 
be a Joser, by the most cultivated intellects being withdrawn 



130 HINDOOS AND CHRISTIANS COMPARED. 

from its service. The principle, that man, in order to reach 
his highest perfection, must learn to give up himself and his 
bodily enjoyments, is one which cannot, I think, he much 
•jontroverted ; but that sort of living death, and that series of 
penances and martyrdoms which are in credit among the In- 
dian devotees, have an evident tendency to stupify and blunt 
the mind, to lead us into a world of sleepy superstitions, and 
above all to nurture within us a sort of spiritual pride and 
vanity which it should above all things be the object of a 
philosopher to avoid. According to the true spirit of Chris- 
tianity, the external abstraction from the duties of citizenship 
ought to be connected with the highest internal activity, not 
only of the spirit, but of the heart, and thereby re-operate in 
the most beneficial manner on all the constitutions of the so- 
ciety which is abandoned. The whole activity of citizen- 
ship, all its duties and labours, are, after all, directed only to 
a few leading purposes, and confined within certain limits. 
There remains ever a yet wider sphere for the exercise of 
that restless activity by which man is tempted to struggle for 
every thing that is within his reach. This is afforded, for 
example, in the first ages of national development, by the 
sciences and the arts of peace. When the state is so far ad- 
vanced that these are taken into the circle of active employ- 
ment, there still remain the needful to be assisted, and the 
sorrowful to be comforted : or if these be all removed, there 
remain yet higher duties, such as to prepare men for ends 
more exalted than any duties of citizenship, or to watch over 
the truth in the midst of times of moral relaxation, to guard 
it from the slow poison of forgetfulness, and transmit it to 
posterity in all its original soundness and integrity. These 
are the things which draw a line of essential distinction be- 
tween those Christian recluses who renounce the world that 
they may live entirely for their higher calling, and the slug- 
gish degradation of the indolent and self-torturing Hindoos. 
But this propensity to a life of retirement and contem- 
plation is by no m^eans the only point of resemblance between 
the Hindoos and the Christians. The Indian idea of a three- 
fold Godhead is one, I confess, upon which I am inclined to 
lay very little stress. Some such division, some allusion tc 
a threefold principle is to be found in the religion of most 
peoples, as well as in the systems of most philosophers. It 



RELIGIOUS CREED OF INDIA. 131 

IS the universal form of being- given by the first cause to all - 
his works, the seal of the Deity, if we may so speak, stamped 
on all the thoughts of the mind and all the forms of nature. 
The Indian doctrine of a threefold principle is extremely 
different from ours, and, at least in the manner in which they 
themselves explain it, is extremely absurd ; for the cause of 
destruction is by it supposed to form part of the highest be- 
ing. That principle of evil, which, in the Persian theology, 
is represented as in perpetual opposition to the Godhead, i& 
by the Indian divines united with the creating and preserving 
power, to make up the being of the Deity himself God is. 
according to their first maxim, " all in all," and they thinli 
that it is as much a part of his prerogative to be the cause of 
all the evil in the world as of all the good. 

The idea of incarnation, so prevalent among the Indians, 
bears little resemblance to any thing in our religion, and is 
indeed every where overburdened with the most absurd fa- 
bles. We may trace a much more solid resemblance in 
those ruling feelings both of life and of poetry to which I 
have already directed your attention. In all the poems and 
works of our ancients (the Greeks) we cannot but be sensi- 
ble of an excessive repose j^ they who are best able to ap- 
preciate the beauty oTlnerr writings will agree with me in 
^.hinking that, even in those cases where the most open ex- 
pression of deep feeling, morality, or conscience, might have 
been expected, the Greek authors are apt to view the subject 
of which they treat as a mere external appearance of life, 
with a certain perfect, undisturbed, and elaborate equability. 
The feelings whose expression would in many cases be the 
most appropriate, are to them uncustomary or unknown. 
We may well say that repentance and hope (I mean that 
higher hope which has eternity for its object) are Christiari 
feelings. Akin to these are all feelings and sentiments 
which are connected with the present abject condition of our 
being, and a sense of the perfection from which we are 
fallen. But among the Indians the feeling and sympathy of 
gu ilt „ are above all others ^predominant. I have already 
mentioned that according to their descriptions of a moral 
transgression, it is something of which all nature is con- 
scious — an outrage against the universe. The solitary voice 
ih the heart, for such is the name by which conscience ii< 



132 CREED OF THE BRAHMINS. 

called, opens to us a new sense, an ear, as it were, by which 
we gam acquaintance with the affairs of a world, which 
would otherwise be entirely imperceptible to us. But this 
voice IS but too often drowned in the noise and tumult of the 
world, and in order to have its suggestions brought with 
more power before our minds, we require to observe the 
effects which the same offences that call down its reproaches 
produce on the feelings of those around us. On such ideas 
and such feelings as these not only has the Indian imagina- 
tion explained all the outward appearances of life ; the whole 
of nature assumes a similar form. In every thing that sur- 
rounds him the Indian sees beings endowed with a nature 
and feelings like his own, suffering like himself under the 
burden of former transgressions, enclosed like him in some 
temporary form of unworthiness, but still capable like him 
of all the tenderness of recollection and all the disconsolate- 
ness of foresight. He is united with all nature by the ties of 
brotherhood, and has his ears open on every side to the voice 
of compassion. The general system under which he be- 
lieves the world to be governed, is one of so much harsh- 
ness, that to make it tolerable he stands in much need of all 
the alleviations which can be afforded him by the balsain of 
love, and his faith in the presence of this all-animating sym- 
pathy. 

But the most remarkable point of resemblance between 
the Indian and the Christian doctrines, lies in the absolute 
identity of conception with which both describe the process 
ofj-egeneration. In the Indian creed, exactly as in our own, 
so soon as the soul becomes touched with the love of divine 
things, it is supposed to drop at once its life contaminated by 
sin, and, as the phoenix rises from its ashes, to spring at once 
into the possession of a new and purified existence. So uni- 
versal is the prevalence of this idea among the Indians, that 
the soul so purified is said by the Brahmins (with the same 
words and the same meaning familiar to ourselves) to be 
New-horn. But even here there is ample room to perceive 
the superiority of our Christian religion. That religion has, 
indeed, no more than either reason or nature, opposed at any 
time the hereditary advantages of earthly possessions ; the 
idea of any such social equality has been confined to a few 
doting and ignorant enthusiasts. But, on the other hand, 



INFERIORITY OF THE HINDOO SYSTEM. 133 

Christianity acknowledges, distinctly and broadly, the prin- 
ciple, that all men are equal before God : a principle much 
better calculated than the other to nourish within us the 
noble spirit of freedom. In the Christian system, all hea- 
venly possessions are the free gift of Heaven, and they are 
often conferred on those whom we should be apt to consider 
as the most mean and the most unworthy. In the religion 
of the Hindoos, those blessings which ought to form the 
common hope of all men, are represented as the peculiar 
priWlege of certain castes. What encouragement for pride 
on the one hand ! what sources of self-despising thoughts 
and voluntary degradations on the other ! 

In spite of all these errors, and all this palpable inferiority 
in the Hindoo system, the resemblance between it and the 
Christian is nevertheless sufficiently distinct to have given 
rise among certain critics to the idea that the Brahmins have 
borrowed many of their opinions from our gospels. I think, 
however, that the prevalence of such notions in India, at a 
period much more early than this, is proved beyond a doubt 
by historical evidence. Besides, I am not of the opinion 
that we ought to be so much startled by the discovery of any 
such imperfect anticipation of the truth. We might, with 
equal reason, take it for granted, whenever we meet in the 
writings of the other Asiatic nations any thing which bears 
a strong resemblance to the traditions of Moses, or the alle- 
gories of Solomon, that the authors of these writings must, 
of necessity, have had in their hands copies of our Old Tes- 
tament exactly like ourselves. Although the stream may 
b3 both distant and impure, it may still retain something of 
the nature of its original fountain. The seeds of all truth 
and all virtue are implanted by nature in man — the image 
of God. He has often indistinct surmises of things which 
are not till long afterwards to be perfectly revealed. The 
first fathers of Christianity found in the life' Socrates and the 
doctrines of Plato so much that harmonized with their ouni 
system, that they scrupled not to say these philosophers were 
both, in some measure, Christians. As all the manifesta- 
tibfis of nature are connected with each other by the common 
principle of being, and as all exercise of reason must give 
birth to somewhat similar results, so also, in a higher re- 
gion, all thos^ truths which relate to divine things are niyt^ 
12 



134 COMPARED WITH OTHER NATIONS. 

teriously kindred to each other. When one step is givetij 
man easily goes farther. It is only necessary that the first 
spark of light should be given from above ; that man can 
no more strike out for himself than he can create for himseli 
a new body or a new soul. It is true that there are many 
thoughts, many trains and worlds of thought, which are 
originated by man himself, but these thoughts are mere 
emanations of selfishness, narrow and unprofitable, and tend- 
ing to no issue. We can no more say that truth and light 
are in these, than that pure morality consists in pride and 
vanity. 

The great picture of the development of the human mind 
and the history of truth and errors, is becoming more per- 
fect in proportion as we are becoming acquainted with a 
greater number of nations possessing systems and mytholo- 
gies of their own. Things which in the western world ap- 
pear always at a great distance from each other, are often 
found in the most intimate union among the remote nations 
of Asia. While the Persians bear, in every thing which 
respects religious belief, a nearer resemblance to the He- 
brews than to any other people, the poetical part of their 
mythology is extremely similar to the northern theology, 
and their manners have many points of coincidence with 
those of the Germans. Among the Indians, again, we find 
a mythology resembling partly that of the Egyptians, partly 
that of the Greeks, and yet comprehending in it many ideas, 
both moral and philosophical, which, in spite of all difier- 
ences in detail, are evidently akin to the doctrines of our 
Christian religion. There is, indeed, no reason to doubt 
that there existed a reciprocal communication of ideas be- 
tween India and those countries which had the nearest access 
to the ancient revelation. The Persians had, without doubt, 
obtained the mastery over Northern India before the days oi 
Alexander, or, at least, they had from time to time overrun 
and conquered it. And Persian ideas and doctrines might 
very easily be circulated in India ; for although they differed 
greatly in institutions and opinions, the two nations were 
originally connected, both by language and descent. Even 
the expedition of Alexander, although the authority it es- 
tablished was of no long duration, may have left a very con- 
siderable impression on tiie minds of the Indians. As in the 



ITS SUPPOSED ORIGIN. 135 

Grecian opimons and mj^hology. much more is of foreign 
origm than one would at first be inclined to believe, in con- 
sequence of the art with which the Greeks rendered every 
thing which they borrowed from other nations Greek : even 
so there may be much in the sacred books of the Brahmins 
originally derived from the opinions of foreign nations. The 
very uniformity and bigotry of Indian tliought. must have 
soon lent an Indian air to whatever was ingrafted on it — 
and may thus have been productive of the same effects as the 
restlessness and variety of Grecian intellect. Although India 
received, perhaps, in the more early periods, no return from 
Egypt for the knowledge which she communicated, the case 
may have been very different afterwards, and the Indians 
may have derived some notions of the doctrines of Judaism 
and Christianity through their intercourse with the Eg}^- 
tians. I have, indeed, little doubt that the later writers of 
Hindostan have had the benefit of some such communica- 
tion. The first diffusion of Christianity on the coast of 
Malabar is supposed to have taken place so early as the age 
of the apostles. We have, besides, historical evidence of a 
Christian mission having been sent from Egypt into India 
about the end of the fourth, or beginnino- of the fifth, century. 
At that period. India was also connected in the way of trade 
with Ethiopia. While Armenia. Syria, Egypt, and Ethiopia, 
remained entirely Christian, and either in subjection to the 
Byzantine empire, or on terms of friendly alliance with it 
the intercourse between the remoter east and the west, b} 
way of Constantinople, must have been extremely easy. Th( 
last writer who describes the Indians of the sixteenth century 
as an eye-\\'itness, says expressly that he found their seas and 
havens filled with Persian vessels. The power of the Per- 
sians was very predominant by land also previous to the ap- 
pearance of Mahomet ; they had already considerably re- 
duced the extent of the eastern empire. In consequence of 
Eg}7)t and Syria being taken away from the Byzantine em- 
pire by the successors of Mahomet, the old intercourse be- 
tween the east and the west was for a time interrupted ; but 
it was restored with great success by the operations of the 
Crusades. 

The epoch in which the different opinions of the Asiatics 
began to be introduced and opposed to each other among the 



136 THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 

Europeans, was that which takes in the period between 
Hadrian and Justinian. But even in the earliest times of 
Christianity the influence of these oriental systems was suf 
ficiently apparent. The mystical sects of the first century 
consisted, in a great measure, of persons who had embraced 
different dogmas of the oriental philosophers, and who en- 
deavoured to blend these, as well as the fictions of altogether 
inconsistent mythologies, with the doctrines of the new faith. 
Even the greatest of the first Christian philosophers, Origen, 
was a believer in the transmigration of souls, and many othei 
oriental opinions, altogether irreconcileable with Christianity. 
In the New-Platonic philosophy, which undertook the do- 
fence of the old Polytheism, and was professedly hostile to 
Christianity, the Egyptian taste made daily steps to predo- 
minance. This philosophy was a strange, chaotic, and fer- 
menting mixture of astrology, metaphysics, and mythology^ _ 
The propensity to secret and magical arts — whose mysteries 
were frequently sinful as well as foolish — grew daily more 
and more into a passion. Such was the philosophy, and 
such the opinions which it was the ambition of the Emperor. 
Julian to establish on the ruins of Christianity. The more 
Christianity increased, the more universal and comprehen- 
sive must the struggle between it and the old religion have 
become. The antipathy natural to two contending parties 
yields an easy explanation of the early persecutions of Chris, 
^tianity. It is not possible to doubt that 2is&l§li9:9: ,^^^ ^ 
regular plan in view, and was resolved, at -all hazards, to 
extirpate our religion. But the cause of truth was strong, 
and its strength became sufficiently manifested in the time of 
Coristantine. The victory which the new religion then 
gafhed was, however, not so much due to the exertions of 
that prince, as to the same internal strength which had been 
the protector of Christianity during all the assaults. of Diocle- 
tian. The establishment of Christianity has, however, been 
numbered among the merits of Constantine, and it is no won- 
der that the fame of such a service has induced posterity to 
throw a merciful veil over all his faults. But the genius of 
the old religion was not yet entirely overthrown, and tho 
contest was once more renewed, and that with redoubled 
spirit, under Julian. This was a prince, whatever his other 
qualities migHTTe, of very splendid talents; he attacked 



UNDER JULIAN. 137 

Christianity, not by open force, like Diocletian, (which was, 
indeed, by this time out of the question,) but with ridicule, 
and all manner of traitorous arts and reproaches. His most 
insidious attempt was to render Christianity contemptible, by 
representing it as a ^stem incompatible with all higher in- 
tellectual accomplishment and education. The modern 
panegyrists of Julian have many pomts of resemblance to 
the subject of their eulogies ; but if they would condescend 
to examine a little more closely into the true nature of that 
scientific superstition to which Julian was attached, perhaps 
they might see less reason to identify their own cause with 
his. 

Even after Christianity had outstood this last regular attack 
upon her existence, she had still to contend with a strong 
opposition from the philosophers down to the time of Jus- 
tinian. That prince banished the philosophers, who were 
her principal enemies, from his dominions. They took re- 
fuge in Persia, where they soon became dispersed and for- 
gotten ; and so terminated the remarkable contest between 
the heathen philosophy and the Christian religion. 
12* 



LECTURE VI. 



JfFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY ON THE ROMAN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 
TRANSITION TO THE NORTHERN NATIONS GOTHIC HEROIC POEMS- 
ODIN, RUNIC WRITINGS AND THE EDDA OLD GERMAN POETRY THE 

NIBELUNGEN-LIE D. 



I HAVE now attempted to give you a view of three pe- 
riods of literature. In setting before you the two first of 
these, — the flourishing era of Greek intellect, from Solon to 
the Ptolemies, and the best and properly classical time of 
Roman literature from Cicero to Trajan, — I had an easy 
task to perform. For by merely passing in review, and 
pointing out the characteristic qualities of the individual 
writers, I did all that was necessary to give you a distinct 
idea of the spirit and progressive character of the whole 
subject — of the various and intermingled revolutions of pro- 
gress and decline by which the literary history of some 
remarkable centuries was distinguished. 

The case was very different with regard to the third pe- 
riod — ^between Hadrian and Justinian. The object here 
was not to describe the forms of particular compositions, 
and the merits of individual authors, but to set before you a 
view of progressive changes in general thought. My pur- 
pose was to display the great struggle between the world of 
antiquity and the new Christian faith ; the influence which 
was produced by the introduction of a new religion from 
Asia into Europe; the fermentation which was produced, 
both among Greeks and Romans, by the influx of oriental 
dogmas and oriental mysticism. My task was here a much 
more difficult one. In order to describe this conflict of 
Asiatic opinions, and the whole picture of Asiatic traditions, 
I was compelled to speak of nations whose literature has 
altogether perished, such as the Egyptians ; of others, whose 
ancient literature is known to us only by the imperfect pro- 



GREEK AND ROMAN WRITERS. 139 

ductions of after ages, such as the Persians ; of the Hebrews, 
w^hose sacred writings contain, indeed, all the old litera- 
ture and poetry of the nation, but are viewed by us in a 
manner little adapted for exact criticism, impressed as we 
are with habitual reverence for what we conceive to be the 
repositories of divine communication: last of all, of the In- 
dians, whose literature is rich and various, but kno'^m to 
us imperfectly, and from sources often of very dubious 
authority. 

Even in the greater proportion of authors (both jaeathens 
and Christians) which were produced by Greece and Rome 
in the time between Hadrian and Justinian, the principal 
object of attention is not the form of composition, but the 
spirit, and import, and development of opinion. Should any 
one attempt to depict this period by going regularly through 
the catalogue of its writers, and assigning to the compo- 
sitions of each their due share of critical blame or appro- 
bation: the consequence would only be, that our ideas 
would be bewildered, and we should entirely lose sight ot 
the main object of importance. It is true that all manner 
of literary information and literary facilities were exten- 
sively diffused during this period : perhaps the spirit of in- 
quiry, and the love of investigation were never so common 
or so lively as at this very time, which was, above all 
others, the most fruitful in the production of all sorts of er- 
rors and superstitions. If we look to the universal acti\'ity 
of intellect, the wide diffusion of knowledge, errors, tra- 
ditions, and erudition of all kinds, we cannot hesitate to con- 
sider this age as. in a mere literary pomt of view, one of the 
most accomplished and remarkable that the world has ever 
seen. But our conclusion would be very different, if we 
should direct our attention only to the character and original 
genius of its individual great authors, and their skill and 
taste in language, style, and composition. In poetry, .0 
which, among the departments of literature, the first place 
is ever due. during the whole of this period nothing really 
new or great was produced. It produced, indeed, great 
masters of eloquence, for that was a talent of which the 
Greeks w?re never destitute ; but what is there either in the 
form or art of their rhetoric that is either new or remark- 
able ? The highest praise to which the best orators of this 



140 EARLY CHRISTIAN WRITERS. 

time can lay claim is, that their style and language are still 
such as to recall to our recollection, or even to sustain a 
comparison with, the better ages of antiquity. The Greek 
language was, indeed, still preserved in great purity and 
perfection. To some of the great Christian orators, such as 
Basil and Chrysostom, we must, however, allow the farther 
praise of having directed that rhetoric, which was natural 
to them as Greeks, not to sophistical topics, which was the 
great error of their predecessors, but to the development of 
the most sacred truth and the purest morality. But in truth, 
the ambition of writing well was no characteristic of this 
age. The Christian fathers had other things in view than 
to shine as authors, and the same thing may be said of their 
heathen opponents. How can any one talk of^Plotinu^ or 
Porphyry, or even of Longinus, as writers, after having 
read Plato ? and ^ret these are the very men whose writings 
merit our chief attention, since their opinions exerted the 
greatest influence, both on their cotemporaries and on pos- 
terity. In general, individual distinctions were lost sight of 
in the overpowering bustle and conflict of the age. There 
are in the history of literature, epochs wherein all the praise, 
both of style and intellect, belong to the genius of individuals 
who had outstripped their generation ; there are others in 
which individuals go for nothing, and all our attention is 
rivetted on the great motions of the common mind. The 
historian of literature must be impartial, and represent with 
equal fidelity all the modes of intellectual manifestations; 
he must give due space both to the repose of artificial de- 
velopment on the one hand, and the creativeness of chaotic 
ferment on the other. 

If we regard only the intellectual strength which was 
ranged on either side in this great contest, we shall find 
that the powers of the two parties, both in talents and in 
erudition, w^ere pretty fairly matched. With perhaps some 
few exceptions, every incident of the conflict was produced 
by the merits of the two causes, not the excellencies or de- 
fects of the individual combatants. Among the Greeks, at. 
the begirming of this period, the heathenish party had cer- 
tainly the advantage ; the Greek literature had its last fine 
season at a time when the Christians under Antoninus 
scarcely ventured to bring forth a single writing in defence 



ADVANCE OF GRECIAN LITERATURE. 141 

aither of their persecuted faith or their calumniated lives. Even 
among the Christian party, the Greeks still maintained their 
reputation of superior intellectual attainments; the first phi- 
losophical and learned apologists, the first great orators and 
historians of Christianity, were all Greeks. The supe- 
riority both in talents and learning began every day to be 
more and more on the side of the Christians. But even 
after the new religion had acquired a complete victory, and 
become the established faith of the empire, among the 
Greeks at least, the heathen party were still distinguished 
by the most commanding talents. Even those last philoso- 
phers who opposed Christianity, and attempted to restore 
heathenism, after it had fairly been abolished, were men who 
are, when considered in relation to the time which produced 
them, worthy of very high admiration, whether we regard 
the profoundness of their view"S, the extent of their learning, 
or even the elegance of their compositions. 

In the west the case was very different. There we have 
only a very few heathen writers, and these ones of no 
great importance, opposed to a whole body of Christian lite- 
rature inXatilU It is true that this western literature is not 
worthy of being compared, either in respect of talents or 
erudition, with the Christian literature of the Greeks. The 
Romans had indeed at no time any great talents for phi- 
Josophy^and metaphysics ; even their language was against 
them, and its defects are no less visible in Augustine than 
in Cicero. It was not till long after the Latin had become 
a dead language, that it was moulded by the violence of 
foreigners into a state capable of expressing in some degree 
(however imperfectly) the subtleties of those born dialecti- 
cians and metaphysicians, the Greeks. The greatest and most 
original work which the later Latin literature produced is 
unquestionably that in which. St. Augustine has attempted to 
give a Christian interpretation, to the greatest work of an- 
cient philosophy — -the Republic of Plato, and the ideal sys- 
tem of man and society which it contains. But even this 
work, although it professes to be chiefly occupied with mat- 
ters of the most abstract nature, such as the destiny of man 
and the ideas of social arrangement, is in truth not so much 
a metaphysical as a moral work. It is, however, a moral 
work in the most extensive sense of that word, for it contains 



142 SOURCES OF MODERN LITERATURE 

many admirable criticisms on the work of Plato, a theory 
of human life, and an abstract of the philosophy of history. 
Even in the Christian age, the national distinctions of Greeks 
and Romans were still kept alive ; and if the former were 
remarkable for skill and subtilty, the latter were no less so 
for practical intellect and soundness of understanding. These 
qualities of the Roman mind, embodied as they were in that 
admirable system of laws which was preserved all over the 
Roman west, among the learned and the clergy, are entitled 
more than any others to our gratitude. It is to the influ- 
ence of the Roman jurisprudence, united with the spirit of 
freedom and naturarieeling^lntroduced by those German 
tribes which conquered and restored the Roman empire, that 
we must ascribe the successful development and dignified 
attitude of modern intellect. 

Christianity (as given to the Teutonic nations by the Ro- 
mans) on the one hand, and the free spirit of the north on 
the other, are the two elements from which the new world 
proceeded, and the literature of the middle ages remained, 
accordingly, at all times, a double literature. One litera- 
ture. Christian and Latin, was common to the whole of 
Europe, and had for its sole object the preservation and ex- 
tension of knowledge ; but there was another and a more 
peculiar literature for each particular nation in its vernacu- 
lar tongue. The first great patrons of modern literature — 
Theodorick the Goth, Charlemagne, and Alfred — had ac- 
cordingly in all their labours a twofold object ; the one, to 
preserve undiminished, and to render more generally useful, 
that inheritance of knowledge which had been transmitted 
doA\m in the Latin language ; the other, to improve the ver:;, 
nacular tongue, and thereby the national spirit — to preserve 
the poetical monuments — but above all, to give a regular 
form to the dialects of the north, and render them capable 
of being used in subjects of science. The poetical, creative, 
and national part of the literature of the middle age, is in- 
deed for us both the most useful and the most pleasing; but 
the Latin part must by no means be passed over in silence, 
for it is the only bond by which modern Europe is connect- 
ed with the whole of classical as well as Christian antiquity. 

The last incidents in the history of the yet living Latin 
language, which had so great an influence on the develop- 



INFLUENCE OF ROMAN DIALECTS. 143 

ment and peculiar character of the Romanic dialects, its 
offspring, and in general on the poetical spirit of the middle 
ages, were the following: — With the translation of the Bi- 
ble into the Roman lang'uage, there commenced an altog-ether 
new period — a late, and in many respects a rich, after-har- 
vest of Latin literature. From the close of the old classical 
period under Trajan, till the age of Christian writers in the 
fourth and fifth centuries, we find an almost total pause ; 
scarcely here and there a single work in the Roman lan- 
guage, and even these ones of very little importance. That 
better and more important works of that period have pe- 
rished we have no reason to suspect. The Greeks had at 
this time a visible superiority. If, in the centuries -which I 
have mentioned, there arose, not only among the Christian 
party, but also among their opponents, several better writers 
both in poetry and in history, perhaps we must ascribe the 
honour of these to the great stirring of intellect which then 
took place, and the revolution introduced into both language 
and literature by the new religion, and the zealous warmth 
of its defenders. Thus once more did the Roman intellect 
owe a period of intellectual and literary exertion, not to its 
own unassisted efforts, but the influence of causes altogether 
foreign and external. The imitation of oriental models be- 
came now the moving principle of Roman writers, as the 
imitation of Greek models had been the moving principle 
of their predecessors. In one point of view perhaps this 
was by no means an unfortunate change ; at all events the 
copying of Greek poetry and eloquence was. in the classical 
age itself, a work of labour and imperfection, and could 
not have been restored with any prospect of success. That 
elegant and periodic mode of composing prose, which seems 
to have been quite natural to the Greeks, remained at all 
times foi eign to the structure of the Roman language. A 
few, indeed, of the most eminent Roman authors mastered 
this difficulty, and attained to a noble and simple mode of 
composition : but all the rest, even those who are entitled to 
be called excellent writers, struggled unsuccessfully with 
the foreign form, and, vainly attempting a too close imita- 
tion of the Greeks, lost and bewildered themselves in an in- 
extricable labyrinth of over-loaded periods. The Roman 
poets, in like manner, when they venture to assume the 



144 THE GREEK AND ROMAN POETRY. 

rich and ornamental clothing of the Grecian muse, can very 
seldom get rid of an air of pedantic constraint and obscurity. 
Even the Greek versification which they adopted (with the 
exception of the hexameter alone, and perhaps the elegiac 
measure) never became thoroughly familiar to Itahan ears. 
The ela-borate system of quantities seems to have been quite 
beyond the reach of the common people, and this may per- 
haps be one reason why Horace, a writer of whom the mo- 
derns are so fond, was far from being equally felt and ad- 
mired by his countrymen, even of the times immediately 
succeeding his own. A great part of his harmony was al- 
together unintelligible to the Roman people. 

The Roman language, although in the end it became ex- 
tremely polished, and attained, in subjects connected with 
law, with warlike affairs, and with the useful arts, a rich- 
ness, and at the same time a precision, to which no other 
can lay claim, had nevertheless at aii times two great wants 
— the want of ease in prose, and the want of boldness in po- 
etry. In both of these respects it might have received great 
improvement, and probably, but for some unfortunate obsta- 
cles, it would have done so, from the revolution \vhich was 
now taking place. Any great improvement was indeed im- 
possible without the operation of some such violent cause, for 
such a cause alone could bring about a complete desertion of 
the old manner of writing ; and so long as that was adhered 
to, to get rid of the old defects was evidently quite impossi- 
ble. The knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures was above 
all things calculated to answer these purposes, for in them 
the greatest sublimity of poetical thought is ever united wdth 
the most unaffected simplicity of expression. To shew what 
might have been produced by the study of those matchless 
writings, I shall only direct your attention for a single mo- 
ment to the common version of the Psalms,* which is, in 
fact, part of the first translation, commonly called the Italick. 
[ appeal to the feelings of every man who can feel and appre- 
ciate the high dignity and noble strength of the Roman lan- 
guage, whether these do not appear to be completely revived 
in this incomparable x^ersion. I am almost tempted to doubt 
whether the whole circle of Roman literat'ire can shew a 

♦ In the Vuljrate 



THE CHRISTIAN FATHERS. 145 

single imitation of Greek poetry so eminently happy as this 
translation of the sacred songs of the Hebrews : wherein the 
utmost elevation of sentiment is throughout accompanied with 
..he most chastened simplicity of style. Even in regard to 
musical soimd, the superiority of the Roman language is 
here so conspicuous, that in our own days the great com- 
posers of the higher music still give the preference to the 
old language, over its harmonious daughter the Italian. The 
true reason why the Roman language derived no lasting im- 
provement from any of these things, was this. — that even 
before the conquests of the German tribes, it had begun to 
be radically corrupted by the influence of the provincials. 
In proportion to the decline of her political power. Rome, 
already the centre of all ecclesiastical influence, began to 
make every day more and more rapid approaches towards a 
complete supremacy?- in all matters of intellect and taste. But 
the effect of this upon her own literature was far from being 
good. Even so early as the days of the first C£esars, it was 
the opinion of many, that there were some defects in the 
Latinity of those Roman writers who were natives of Spain 
— that they wrote wnth the air of men speaking a foreign 
language ; and, indeed, many modern critics have thought 
they could trace no inconsiderable resemblance between the 
antitheses of Seneca and the bombast of Lucan. and some 
prevailing errors in taste among the modern Spanish writers. 
But how much more common must these provincialisms 
have become in the age of which we are now treating : an 
age wherein the greater part of the Latin writers, and. in- 
deed, almost all the first Latin fathers, were natives either of 
Afi-ica or of Gaul. It is scarcely to be doubted, that in the 
many far dispersed provinces of the empire, several distinst 
Roman dialects were long before this time formed. Even 
in Italy there is ev^ery reason to believe that the language ol 
the common people differed materially from that of which 
the Roman writers made use, and which was spoken in the 
metropolis. It is to this Romanic dialect of the common 
people — the Lingua Rustica^ as it was called — that the 
modern Italian grammarians are fond of ascriuing the orio-in 
of their own language, rather than to the change wrought 
on the proper Latin tongue by the invasion of the northern 
iribes. In the meantime, as Rome had been originally nor 

13 



146 



THEODORIC THE GOTH, 



only the fountain, but perhaps the only seat of pure speak- 
ing, so the language remained much longer pure in her than 
in any other part of the empire,. The most eloquent and 
powerful writer among the Latin fathers — St. Jerome — wag 
not. indeed, a native of Rome, but he had at least received 
all his education there. And however inferior the language 
of the fifth century must of necessity be to that of Cicero, yet 
in Jerome we see much both of the true strength of old La- 
tinity, and the unequivocal elegance of classical cultivation. 
The change upon the Latin language must have been great 
mdeed, \vhpn, in consequence of the prodigious influx of 
Goths into Italy and of many of these settling in Rome it- 
self the language began to be spoken and written by a great 
population to which it was altogether foreign. Although 
no absolute mixture of the languages as yet took place, yet 
it is certain that the Latin underwent at least such an alter- 
ation as rendered it a matter of labour and exertion for the 
Romans themselves to preserve m their speech any share of 
that purity which was formerly natural to them. 

This, indeed, begins to form a characteristic feature in all 
the Roman writers of the age of the Gothic king Theodo- 
rick. With him antiquity ends, and all the writers after his 
time may be said to belong to the middle age. 

However favourable its consequences may have after- 
wards been, there is no doubt that the first introduction of 
Christianity must, like every other great revolution, have 
produced a temporary niterruption in all art and all litera- 
ture. Perhaps of all the fine arts, that which suffered the 
least was architecture, for the new religion not only adopted 
the finest old buildings for its own purposes, but suggested 
the idea of new buildings which could have had no existence 
under the former system, or among any people ignorant of 
the peculiar character and sublimity of the Christian wor- 
ship. In the same manner that the Greeks had of old 
formed a truly Grecian architecture out of the elements fur- 
nished to ihem by the Egyptians and other nations, the 
Christians now made use of the beautiful forms of the Gre- 
cian architecture, and formed out of them a new style, which 
was purely and originally a Christian architecture. How 
soon this took place may be learned from the admiralde 
church of St. Sophia in Constantinople, which was l-wik in 



DECLINE OF THE ARTS. 147 

the time of Justinian by Anthemius. himself not only a great 
practical architect, but also a great and scientific writer upon 
the theory of his art. The absurdity of calling all the Teu- 
tonic architecture of the middle ages by the name Gothic has 
been often remarked ; but there is no doubt, that during the 
period of their empire in Italy, the Goths erected many 
buildings, which still survive as specimens of their architec- 
tural skill. The fate of the ancient music was in like man- 
ner, fortunate : its most simple and noble species w^ere at once 
adopted into the service of the Christian church, and w^e still 
listen to many ancient Roman airs, adapted to the service of 
h^^mns and psalms, and invested with a more solemn and 
etherial harmony by the majestic accompaniments of the or- 
gan. The interruption in sculpture was much greater. The 
images of the ancient gods, so long as they were considered 
as such, and not view^ed merely as specimens of art, were 
objects of unmingled aversion to the early Christians. The 
representations of our Saviour and the Virgin, which soon 
became common among them, were not intended to serve 
any other purpose than the excitement of pious reflections. 
They afforded very little scope either for sculpture or paint- 
ing when treated in this way, and to make use of them as 
vehicles for the expression of beauty, whether in form or 
sentiment, w^as the thought of a period as yet far distant. But 
yet greater than this, and, indeed, far greater than any other, 
must have been the interruption which took place in poetry. 
Some few, indeed, still persisted in making a poetical use of 
the old Pagan mythology : but as all the particulars of that 
system had already been completely exhausted, and the be- 
lief itself was utterly gone, nothing more was attainable than 
a faint and elaborate imitation of the matchless works of the 
true Pagans. The attempt to form a new^ and properly 
Christian poetry was, indeed, extremely successful in the 
department of hymns and songs, for in these the w'arm ex- 
pression of feeling was alone sufficient to constitute excel- 
lence ; and besides, the Christian writers had this advan- 
tage, that they were almost compelled to follow the example 
of the very best models they could have had, — the Psahi-'i 
' the Hebrews. But the more ambitious attempts to d'-- 
scribe in poetry the whole system of Christianity, were m 
general, as has very frequently been the case in modern 



148 ORIGIN OF CHIVALROUS POETRY. 

times, altogether unsuccessful ; the form of composition bor- 
rowed from the ancient poets was little adapted for such sub- 
jects, and the result was only a collection of uninteresting 
centos, possessing, indeed, the attributes of metrical arrange 
ment and elevated language, but utterly destitute of all that life 
and spirit in which the essence of poetry consists. For these 
Europe had to look to her other fountain of inspiration, the 
north. 

In the very earliest Roman accounts of the German ^na- 
tions we find many notices of their extraordinary love for 
poetry. The songs in which the actions of Hermann* were 
celebrated have perished ; so also have those inspiring strains 
with which the prophetess Veleda was wont to animate the 
courage of the Teutonic Batavi, when they, after long fol- 
lowing the Roman banners against their brethren of Ger- 
many, undertook at last to maintain a war in defence of their 
own freedom ; and found too late, by sad experience, that the 
time for resistance had gone by. The mythological poems 
of these northern nations must naturally have been forgotten 
after the adoption of a new religion. But the most essen- 
tial part, the spirit and strength of their poetry, was kept 
alive in the historical heroic poems. These, in process of 
time, came to be composed with greater elegance of lan- 
guage and versification, to be softened by the refinement of 
manners, and to be beautified and ennobled by the spirit of 

love and thoughtfulness. And such was the origin of that 

.... 
chivalrous poetry which is (m this shape at least) altogether 

peculiar to Christian Europe and has produced effects >^o 

powerful on the national spirit of its noblest inhabitants. 

Of the Teutonic nations converted to Christianity the 

Goths were the first who posspssed historical heroic poems 

of the kind to which I have alluded. Gothic heroic poems 

were already sung in the time of Attila. and they continued 

to form the amusement of the court of King Theodoricl^. 

Even the Latin writers of that age make mention of them, 

and some of them have transmitted to us as true histor^r in 

prose, particulars relating to the antiquities of the northern 

tribes, which were in fact only the poetical ornaments of 

these heroic legends. The fame of the royal line of xh^ 

* Arminius. 



OF GOTHIC LITERATURE. 149 

Amali, and all the heroes of that race, seems to have been 
the favourite subject of these poems. In the sequel both 
Attila and Theodorick. and after them Charlemagne him- 
self were honoured with a similar celebration. /N 
. Of Gothic literature we still possess one monument, the 
Bible of Ulphilas : and it is evident from it that the Gothic 
anguage had at least made very close approximations to a 
regular construction. This version of the sacred writings 
was originally executed for the use of those Gothic tribes 
which occupied the countries on the Danube : but we have 
the clearest evidence that the very same dialect was spoken 
by the Goths in Italy. It is expressly stated that Theo- 
dorick favoured impartially the progress of both literatures, 
the Latin and the Gothic. We know, indeed, that he en- 
couraged the translating of Latin books into Gothic, exactly 
as the great Alfred, somewhat later, did that of the same 
books into Anglo-Saxon. From the manner in which the 
Latin historian Jornandes acknowledges his obligations to 
the heroic poems of the Goths, there is great reason to be- 
lieve that he. or rather the authors whom he transcribed, 
had not barely heard these poems recited, but seen them 
committed to writing at the court of Theodorick. And this 
is rendered the more probable by the circumstance of these 
poems having been, so far as we can judge, principally oc- 
cupied with the achievements of the royal race of the Amali. 
A prince like Theodorick would neglect no means to secure 
the preservation of such interesting records. But with the 
disappearance of the Gothic nation, its language also, and 
all the monuments of its greatness, passed away. These 
were, indeed, preserved in some measure among the Spaniards 
after they had elsewhere been forgotten, for it was the am- 
bition of the Spanish monarchs to trace their lineage to the 
old Gothic kings. But in Italy, on the contrary, every 
Gothic monument seems to have been studiously destroyed; 
for there the vanity of the great families took a different turn, 
and they were willing to sacrifice all the proofs of a true 
Gothic or Longobardic pedigree, for the sake of fabricating 
a descent from some of the patricians of ancient Rome. 

If we reflect on the nature of the prevalent tastes of that 
age, we shall, I think, have no difficulty in concluding thai 
those songs of the German bards which Charlemagne 
13* 



150 POETRY OF THE GOTHS. 

caused to be collected and committed to writing, could 
scarcely have been any thing else than similar heroic poems 
relating to the first Christian period, and the great expedi- 
tions of the northern tribts. He was to the German bards 
what Solon was to Homer or the Homeridse. Now we 
have still extant heroic poems in the German language, 
wherein Attila, Odoacer, Theodorick, and the race of the 
Amali, are celebrated, in conjunction with many heroes, 
both Frankish and Burgundian, all mingled together with- 
out scruple by the bold anachronisms of a most uncritical 
age The present shape in which these poems appear bears, 
indeed, the clearest marks of an age long posterior to that 
of Charlemagne. But perhaps it is not too much to say, 
that we have still in our possession, if not the language or 
form, at least the substance of may of those ancient poems 
which were collected by the orders of that prince ; I refer 
to the Nibelungen-lied,^ and the collection which goes by 
the name of the Heldenbuch.\ 

The opinion that the poems collected together by Char- 
lemagne referred to Hermann or Odin, or in general to the 
Pagan antiquities and mythology of the old Germans, can, 
I apprehend, be entertained only by those who have not 
looked with sufficient accuracy into the spirit of that age. 
I shall bring forward a single historical evidence, which 
may, I think, greatly contribute to put an end to the dispute. 
This is the still extant formula of that oath by which the 
Saxons renounced heathenism on their conversion to Chris- 
tianity. Its words are as follows : — " I renounce all the 
works and words of the Devil, Thunaer, (that is, the God 
of thunder or Thor,) and Wodan, and Saxon Odin, and all 
the unholy that are their kindred." This formula is in- 
deed, commonly ascribed to the eighth century, rather be- 
fore the time of Charlemagne; but that is of no importance, 
it is quite sufficient evidence of the spirit of those days. 
Odin was still worshipped in Saxony in the age of Charle- 
magne, and sacrifices were offered to him on the Hartz that 
he might assist the Saxon armies in their wars with Char- 
lemagne himself How, then, can we believe that, in such 
f» state of things, Charlemagne would make collections of 

* Lay of the Nibel/ mgen t Book of Heroes 



ODEN. A HISTORICAL PERSONAGE, 151 

heathenish poetry in praise of Hermann or Odin ? For the 
same oath another historical truth of great importance may 
also be gathered, and that is, — ^that Odin was a person alto- 
gether distinct from Wodan, having Saxony expressly men- 
tioned as his native land. Even the legends and histories 
of Scandinavia, although they might very easily have appro- 
priated Odin entirely to themselves, are yet uniform and 
consistent in relating that he was at first king in Saxony, 
and came from thence to Sweden, where he built Sigtuna 
and established his great empire. The testimony of the 
Anglo-Saxons is strongly in favour of the same account, 
and their testimony is of very considerable weight, for their 
kings (and among the rest Alfred) traced their genealogy 
in the right line to Odin. This Anglo-Saxon genealogy 
is supported by so many historical proofs, and tlis effect of 
the coinciding testimonies of these two distant n itions is on 
my mind so strong, that I have little hesitation ia adopting 
the opinion of those who consider Odin as a historical per- 
sonage, I agree with them in thinking it extremely proba- 
ble that he lived about the third century of our era — a time 
in which the Romans, too weak to make attacks, and yet 
too formidable to be invaded, had perhaps fewer means of 
knowing what passed in the north of Germany than at any 
other period, either before or afterwards. It is, I think, in 
these facts that we must seek for the reason, why the name 
of Odin, so pre-eminently illustrious among the Saxons and 
the Scandinavians, remained comparatively unknown, not 
only to the Romans, but to all the nations of the west. I 
imagine that we must consider Odin as belonging to the 
same class with many deities of the classical mythology. 
He was, I doubt not, a prince, a conqueror, a hero and at 
the same time a poet ; he was the author of prophetic songs, 
by means of which he, in conjunction with priests, seers, and 
other poets, his coadjutors, introduced great changes into 
the theology of his countrymen ; if he did not create a new 
system, he at least formed a new epoch in the old ; and, as 
he had made pretensions during his life to supernatural 
powers and attainments, it was quite in the common course 
of things that he should be deified after his death. That 
Odin had originally come into Saxony out of Asia, is a 
Scandinavian legend, or rather fancj-, aJtogether irreconcile- 



152 THE POETICAL ODEN. 

able with this account of the historical Odin. The Scandi- 
navian collectors themselves were satisfied that they could 
not possibly reconcile their legend with historical truth, and 
they accordingly had recourse to the story of another Odin, 
although they, indeed, very often confounded the two to- 
gether. If I am not deceived, however, I think we may 
find some traces of this elder Odin in an ancient writer who 
is in all instances worthy of the greatest attention. Tacitus 
mentions, in the beginning of his treatise on the manners of 
the Germans, the existence of a legend — according to which 
Ulysses came in the course of his wanderings into Germa- 
ny, and there founded the city of Asciburgum. Now, the 
ancients were accustomed to consider legends such as this 
in a point of view of which we have no notion. They con- 
sidered nothing in such traditions but the universal idea of 
a deity or a hero. They called the god of war of every na- 
tion by the name of Mars, and every deity presiding over 
science or art by that of Mercury, and if they did not alto- 
gether overlook local differences, they at least attached to 
them very little importance. Ulysses was the common idea 
of a wandering hero, and to him and to his son, even in the 
remotest regions of the west, cities, and colonies, and all 
manner of adventures were ascribed. Wherever they met 
with any legend concerning a wandering hero, whether of 
the western or of the northern nations, their Hercules or 
Ulysses was always at hand, and in the history of one or 
other of them the foreign tradition was forthwith accommo- 
dated with a niche. The recollection of their origin, and 
first egress from Asia, had not entirely perished among the 
tribes of the north. Some legend of this kind, of a hero 
wandering out of distant lands into Germany must have 
been repeated to Tacitus ; and if the name was that of the 
elder Odin, it could scarcely fail to recall to the ears of the 
Roman that of the Greek Odysseus^ and so to impress on 
his mind a yet stronger belief in the coincidence which he 
had remarked. 

These historical songs, and heroic poems, were not, cer- 
tainl^T-j in the older times (unless by the positive command 
of some prince) ever committed to writing: that was totally 
contrary, both to the spirit of such compositions, and the 
customs of those who recited them. I suppose they were 



THE RUNIC ALPHABET. 153 

Still left entirely to oral tradition, even after the Germans 
had been long- connected with the Romans, and lived in so- 
ciety with them in many different countries, and been pul 
in complete possession, both of alphabets and all the mate- 
rials of writing-. This, however, was probably by no means 
the case in respect of those prophetic songs of wh ch the 
theology of Odin had such need, — and such abundance. In 
these I have little doubt that letters were employed. In an- 
other work I have already taken occasion to express my 
opinions that the German nation were not altogether unac- 
quainted with the use of letters, even in times preceding their 
knowledge of the Greek and the Roman alphabets. The Ru- 
nic alphabet, at least as we now have it, is indeed of a much 
more recent date ; several of its letters are exactly copied 
from the Roman, but then others of them were entirely dif- 
ferent, and cannot be accounted for by any corruption of 
formation. The peculiar arrangement of the letters, and 
even the defectiveness of this alphabet, (for originally it con- 
tained only sixteen letters.) seem to me sufficient proofs that 
it was an original alphabet, not one borrowed from the Ro- 
mans. Even in the infinitely more perfect alphabets after- 
terwards used by the Goths and the Anglo-Saxons, although 
these are in general evidently borroAved from the Greeks or 
Romans, there still are to be found traces of the old Runic 
alphabet. For that this was an alphabet common to many 
at least of the German nations, is evident from the abun- 
dance of Runic inscriptions which have been discovered in 
all the countries formerly occupied either by Goths or Ger 
mans. Where, then, it may be asked, was the Runic alphabet 
learned, if not from the Greeks and Romans ? If it is abso- 
lutely necessary to find a foreign origin for it, I think therft 
can be no great difficulty in discovering one which has at least 
probability on its side. The Phoenicians, from whom so many 
other nations derived their alphabets, were for many ages in 
the undisputed possession of the traffic of the Baltic. We 
have historical evidence in our hands that several of those 
German nations which inhabited the countries on the Baltic, 
were infinitely more advanced in cultivation than the more 
warlike tribes which occupied the Roman frontier, and the 
borders of the Rhine, Here also, by the Baltic Sea, was 
the original seat of that worship of jrfertha^ which is repre- 



154 ITS MYSTERIOUS CHARACTERS 

sented by Tacitus to have consisted in a species of mysteries^ 
Perhaps the Runic characters were connected with this 
worship, and entirely appropriated to the superstitious pur- 
poses of its priests. That they were at least employed in 
magical ceremonies, is so certain, that I need not occupy 
your time in proving it. The wooden characters were pro- 
bably arranged in some mysterious order so as to answer 
the purpose of a rubric to the prophetic or devoting song 
which was muttered over them. The greater characters 
seem to have been again and again repeated in some method 
W"hich we cannot explain, but which certainly was not with- 
out its meaning. The form in which we find the Runic 
letters inscribed on stones, affords, in my opinion, indubita- 
ble proof that they were at least sometimes applied to such 
purposes as these. It is not easy, indeed, for those who are 
at home only in the world of civilization and refinement to 
enter into the spirit of these barbarous observances. For 
my part I have little difficulty in conceiving that the me- 
thods adopted by these northern priests were the very best 
they could have chosen in order to magnify the importance 
of their own attainments and impress the minds of their pu- 
pils, or of the multitude, with a due sense of mystery and 
awe. But it is in our times by no means uncommon to see 
the same men mistaking fiction for history, and history for 
fiction. 

In Saxony itself, after its submission to the yoke of Char- 
lemagne, the theology of Odin became very soon rooted out. 
But even in much later times there remained many traces 
of its superstitions. The country people would not part 
with their festival of spring, and that most innocent, most 
natural, and most universal of all holydays, was still hal- 
lowed with due observance at the opening of the May. 
Many usages of the same kind were preserved among the 
Christian services of the Pentecost. Even at the present 
day, in many of the northern districts of Germany, at that 
season of the year when the day is longest, great fires are 
kindled by night upon the mountains; a custom whose 
meaning has long since been forgotten, but which is beyond 
all doubt another relic of that ancient system so long para- 
mount in all the regions oi the north. It was natural that 
those traces diuuid linger the longest among woods and 



SCANDINAVIAN REMAINS 155 

hills. Avhich were of old the favourite scenes of this Pagan 
worship. Even after the lapse of many Christian centuries, 
a superstitious reverence is still attached to some antique and 
spreading oaks among the forests of the Hartz and the Rei 
sengebirgen:* in our popular poetry the odoriferous linden 
is still invested with its character of magic: and the branches 
of the willo^' are in the hands of every fortune-telling gipsy. 
Many relics of the deserted faith were, indeed, preserved, but 
they soon assumed the character of mere Aiilgar delusions, 
and sunk far below the loftiness of their old religious desti- 
nation. To the inspired prophetesses and mandrakes of 
norrhern antiquity, succeeded the tricks, the execrations, and 
the midnight dance of witches; and in place of Odin's Val- 
halla, the majestic congregation of God's and heroes — came 
the hauntings of the Rheingau. and the ghostly tumults of 
the. Night of Moonwoit. 

In the meantime the theolog}^ of Odin, after being ban- 
ished from its native land, found a secure asylum in the 
Scandinavian north : where it yielded, not till after a long 
struggle, late and reluctantly to the Christian faith, and 
from whence the knowledge of it. preserved in many glori- 
ous songs and legends, has in later days been communicated 
to ourselves. It is by means of these Scandinavian remains 
that we are now enabled to trace the poetry of the middle 
ages, and in particular the whole system of Teutonic opin- 
ions, to their true sources. Above all. we are indebted for 
these advantages to the Icelandic Edda. This work seems 
to have received the shape in which it now appears some- 
where between the ninth and the thirteenth centuries — be- 
tween the age of Harald Harfagr, when the Normans first 
established themselves in Iceland, and the death of Snorro 
Sturleson and the suppression of the Icelandic freedom. In 
its later parts we find many allusions both to the Greek my- 
thology, and to Christianit3^ partly introduced with a vieAv 
of tracing similarities between those systems and the north- 
ern legends, partly for the purpose of connecting the history 
of the Scandina^-ian tribes with that of the ancient nations. 
But in the most admirable passages, and above all, in the 
poetry of the elder Edda. there breathes, in its utmost purity 

* The Mil s of the Giants on the borders of Bohemia. 



156 GREEK AND SCANDINAVIAN THEOLOGY COMPARED. 

the true spirit of the northern theology. The perfect unity 
of this system is that which distinguishes it most remarkably 
from that of the Greeks. The Greek theology was perhaps 
too rich to permit of its being well and consistently repre- 
sented in one picture. Besides, if we compare it with the 
northern, we cannot fail to observe a want of proper end or 
purpose in the whole of its arrangement. The divine and 
heroic world of the Greeks is perpetually losing itself in 
the world of men ; their poetry in the world of prose and 
reality. But the theology of the north is consistent and en- 
tire ; every thing is foretold by prophecies, and the last long 
expected catastrophe is a perfect close. The whole resem- 
bles one progressive poem — one tragedy. From the com- 
mencement, which teaches how the earth and the world 
arose out of the carcase of a benumbed giant — and the de- 
scription of those happier days when the holy ash Ysdragilj 
began to grow green over the old abyss, ("that tree of life 
which extendeth its roots through all oceans, and spreads its 
branches over the universe,") and the narration how bold 
heroes and the friendly spirits of light overcame, in many 
combats, the might of the giants and the old powers of dark- 
ness, down to the last great mystery, the ruin of gods and 
Asae — of Odin and his comrades — ^the whole is one great 
and connected poem of nature and heroism. The real ob- 
ject upon which its interest depends is, as in almost all other 
poetical legends, the termination of a glorious and heroic 
world. The destiny of war is ever most hostile to the no- 
blest, the most valiant, and the most graceful of heroes ; and 
Odin assembles all that are slain in his Valhalla, that he 
may have the more friends and combatants in that last war 
against the power of his enemies — a war in which he is oi 
old destined to be not the victor but the vanquished. The 
first incident in which this great object of the whole is set 
forth, is the death of Balder. As in the Trojan legends, by 
the death of the two noblest heroes, Hector and Achilles, sc 
here also, by the death of Balder, " the favourite of all the 
gods, the most beautiful of warriors," there is shadowed out 
the universal decay of the heroic world. His fate is fixed 
by destiny ; in vain does the foot of Odin tread the path to 
Hades. Hela, like the Theban Sphinx, gives no answer bu' 
an enigma — an enigma which is to be explained by fearful 



J LUroMlC POETRY. 157 

tragedies, and secure to destruction the fated prey. Perhaps 
the Ossianic poetry — at least so much of it as is of genuine 
antiquity — had its origin about the same period with these, 
but as the knowledge of it was at all times confined to the 
small circle of the Scottish Gaels, and never exerted the 
smallest influence on the common literature of Europe, I 
shall reserve the consideration of it till another opportunity. 
Among the Teutonic nations, scattered over the different 
regions of Europe, their original love of poetry was mani- 
fested in a great number of attempts to set forth Christianity 
in verse, and to give a poetical clothing to the histories of 
the sacred writings. Many such attempts were made among 
the Saxons in England, and one in Southern Germany by 
Ottfried. These attempts, so far as the mere art of poetical 
composition is concerned, were, indeed, like some more mo- 
dern attempts of much greater poets, not very successful 
But they have been of great advantage to us, for they have 
supplied the most perfect means of information with respect 
to the poetical language and versification of that time. Above 
all, they are valuable because these Christian poets did not 
invent a form of writing for themselves, but were contented 
with copying and adopting that of the heroic poems of the 
preceding ages. We are at least certain that this was the 
case with regard to Ottfried, for we have still in our hands 
a heroic and warlike poem of the same period, which agrees 
in all circumstances with the form of his writings. This is 
a war song used by Lewis, King of the East Franks, in his 
contest with the Normaris. A song of such antiquity (for 
it is now more than nine hundred years old) is indeed, on 
account of that circumstance alone, an invaluable monument. 
But it contains one passage which is of some historical im- 
portance. The poet describes the solemn stillness, and calm 
bravery of the marshalled army, before the moment of attack 

" There were red cheeks in the ranks 
Of the war-delighting Franks."* 

And a little afterwards he says, 

" Now the song was sung. 
And the battle begun." t 



*Blut schien en wangen t Lied war gesungen, 

Kampf-lustiger Franken. Schlacht ward begunnep. 

14 



158 PECUI-IARITIES OF HEROIC POETRY. 

We can see from this that the same old German custonij 
which is described by Tacitus, of inspiriting- the soldiers for 
action by a heroic song, was still preserved, after the lapse 
of many centuries, among the armies of the Teutonic peo- 
ples. That great attention was still bestowed by the Chris 
tian Germans on heroic poetry, may be inferred from the 
opening of one of these old poems — one which certainly 
could not at first sight be supposed likely to contain any 
warlike allusions, since it is professedly a panegyric on St 
Annus, the Bishop of Cologne. 

" Often have we heard bards tell, 
How in the old time towers and cities fell, 
How haughty kingdoms met their destined day, 
And peerless champions bled their souls away !"» 

The proper subjects of all heroic poems — ^the fall of nations, 
and the contest of heroes, are here pointed out in a manner 
at once short and impressive. 

Although the Nibelungen-lied was not in all probability 
reduced to its present form before the beginning of the 
thirteenth century, yet I think the present may be the fittest 
opportunity for directing your attention to a composition so 
nearly of the same class with those we have been considering. 

That skilful unfolding of incidents, and almost dramatic 
vividness of representation which form the chief character- 
istic of the Homeric poems, are qualities which were pecu- 
liar to the Greeks, and have never been imitated w^ith much 
success by the poets of any other people. But among the 
heroic poems of those of other nations which have remained 
satisfied with a more simple mode of poetry, this German 
poem claims a very high place — perhaps among all the 
heroic chivalrous poems of modern Europe it is entitled to 
the first. It is peculiarly distinguished by its unity of plan ; 
it is a picture, or rather it is a series of successive pictures, 
each naturally following tht. other, and all delineated with 
great boldness and simplicity, and a total disregard of all 
superfluities. The German language appears in this w^ork 
in a state of perfection to which, in the subsequent periods 
of its early history, it had no pretensions. Along with all 

* " Wir horten von helden oft ma Is singen 
Und wie sie feste Burgen brachen, 
Wie hohe konigreicke all vorgingin 
Und wie sich Hebe kampfgenossen schieden." 



SUPERIORITY OF THE GERMAN LANGT7A.GE. 159 

its natural liveliness and strength, it seems at that time to 
have possessed a flexibility which soon afterwards gave 
place to a style of affectation, hardness, and perplexity. The 
heroic legends of all nations have, as I have already several 
times mentioned, a great deal in common so far as their es- 
sence and purpose are concerned: their variety is only pro- 
duced by their being imbued with the peculiar feelings, and 
composed m the peculiar measures, of different nations. In 
the Nibeluiigen-lied, in the same manner as in the legends 
of Troy and of Iceland, the interest turns on the fate of a 
youthful hero, who is represented as invested with all the 
attributes of beauty, magnanimity, and victory — but dearly 
purchasing all these perishable glories by the certainty of 
an early and a predicted death. In his person, as is usual, 
we have a living type both of the splendour and the decline 
of the heroic world. The poem closes with the description 
of a great catastrophe, borrowed from a half historical inci- 
dent in the early traditions of the north. In this respect 
also, as in many others, we cannot fail to perceive a resem- 
blance to the Iliad ; if the last catastrophe of the German 
poem be one more tragical, bloody, and Titanic than any 
thing in Homer, the death of the German hero, on the other 
hand, has in it more solemnity and stillness, and is withal 
depicted with more exquisite touches of tenderness, than any 
similar scene in any heroic poem with w^hich I am acquainted. 
The Nibelungen-lied is, moreover, a poem abounding in 
variety ; in it both sides of human life, the joyful as well as 
the sorrowful, are depicted in all their strength. The pro- 
mise of the opening stanza is fulfilled. 

"I sing of loves and wassellings, if ye will lend your ears, 
Of bold men's bloody combatings, and gentle ladies' tears."* 



S" Von freuden und festee zeiten, von weinen, und von klagen 
Von kuliier helden straiten, mogt ihr nun wunder horen 



LECTURE VIl. 



OF THE MIDDLE AGE OF THE ORIGIN OF THE MODERN EUROPEAN LANL 

GUAGES POETRY OF THE JIIDDLE AGE LOVE POETRY CHARACTER 

OP THE NORMANS, AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON THE CHIVALROUS POEMS 
PARTICULARLY THOSE WHICH TREAT* OF CHARLEMAGNE. 



We often think of and represent to ourselves the middle 
age, as a blank in the history of the hnman mind, an empty 
space between the refinement of antiquity and the illumina- 
tion of modern times. We are willing to believe that art 
and science had entirely perished, that their resurrection, 
after a thousand years' sleep may appear something more 
wonderful and sublime. Here, as in many others of out 
customary opinions, we are at once false, narrow-sighted, 
and unjust ; we give up substance for gaudiness, and sacri- 
fice truth to efect. The fact is, that the substantial part of the 
knowledge and civilization of antiquity never was forgotten, 
and that for very many of the best and noblest productions 
of modern genius, we are entirely obliged to the inventive 
spirit of the middle age. It is upon the whole extremely 
doubtful whether those periods which are the most rich in 
literature, possess the greatest share either of moral excel- 
lence or of political happiness. We are well aware that the 
true and happy age of Roman greatness long preceded that 
of Roman refinement and Roman authors ; and I fear there 
IS but too much reason to suppose that, in the history of the 
modern nations, we may find many examples of the same 
kind. But even if we should not at all take into our con- 
sideration these higher and more universal standards of the 
worth and excellence of ages and nations, and although we 
should entirely confine our attention to literature and intel- 
lectual cultivation alone, we ought still, I imagine, to be very 
far from viewing the period of the middle ages with the 
fashionable degree of self-satisfaction and contempt. 



THE POETICAL WEALTH OF THE GREEKS. 161 

If we consider literature in its widest sense, as the voice 
which gives expression to human intellect — as the aggre- 
gate mass of symbols in which the spirit of an age or the 
character of a nation is shadowed forth ; then, indeed, a great 
and accomplished literature is, w^ithout all doubt, the most 
valuable possession of which any nation can boast. But il 
we allow ourselves to narrow the meaning of the Avord lite- 
rature so as to make it suit the limits of our oaati prejudices, 
and expect to find in all literatures the same sort of excel- 
lencies, and the same sort of forms, we are sinning against 
the spirit of all philosophy, and manifesting our utter igno- 
rance of all nature. Every where, in individuals as in spe- 
cies, in small things as in great, the fulness of invention 
must precede the refinem.ents of art, — legend must go before 
history, and poetry before criticism. If the literature of any 
nation has had no such poetical antiquity before arriving at 
its period of regular and artificial development, we may be 
sure that this literature can never attain to a national shape 
and character, or come to breathe the spiritof originality and 
independence. The Greeks possessed such a period of po 
etical wealth in those ages (ages certainly not very remark 
able for their refinement either in literature, properly so 
called, or in science) which elapsed between the Trojan ad- 
ventures and the times of Solon and Pericles, and it is to this 
period that the literature of Greece was mainly indebted for 
the variety, originality, and beauty of its unrivalled produc- 
tions. What that period was to Greece, the middle age was 
to modern Europe ; the fulness of creative fancy was the 
distinguishing characteristic of them both. The long and 
silent process of vegetation must precede the spring, and the 
spring must precede the maturity of the fruit. The youth 
of individuals has been often called their spring-time of life ; 
I imagine we may speak so of whole nations with the same 
propriety as of individuals. They also have their seasons 
of unfolding intellect and mental blossoming. The age of 
crusades, chivalry, romance, and minstrelsy, was an intel- 
lectual spring among all the nations of the west. 

Literature, however, may be considered in another point 
of view, besides this poetical one, in which our chief atten- 
tion is bestowed on invention, feeling, and imagination. It 
may also be regarded as it is the great organ of tradition, bv 
14* 



162 INFLUENCE OF A DEAD LANGUAGE. 

means of which the knowledge of the ancient world is trans- 
mitted to the modern, and not only preserved in its original 
integrity, but also daily augmented and improved by the na- 
tural progress of ages. The poetical department of litera- 
ture is that which has been developed in the different ver- 
bacular dialects of modern Europe ; the other, which has 
for its object the preservation of inherited knowledge, must 
be sought for in that Latin literature of the middle age, 
which was the common property of all the nations of the 
west. Even with regard to this we shall find, if we con- 
sider the case with due attention, and enter into the true his- 
tory and spirit of the middle age, that the progress of litera- 
ture was something very different from what we are in gene- 
ral accustomed to suppose. 

If we should take nothing more into consideration than 
poetry and the development of national intellect in the ver- 
nacular tongues, we might very naturally wish that no such 
Latin literature had ever existed, and that the dead languag^e 
had gone altogether out of use. There is no doubt that its 
use contributed in no small degree to take away all life from 
history and philosophy, more particularly from the last. 
There was indeed something beyond measure barbarous and 
ruinous in the custom of treating all matters connected with 
science, learning, legislation, and state-policy, in a dead and 
foreign language. Its consequences were disadvantageous 
in many respects, but above all in regard to poetry. A great 
many poetical monuments of the Germans, and indeed of all 
the western nations, have perished, in consequence of the 
pains taken by well-meaning translators and would-be ex- 
pounders, who were indefatigable in rendering every thing 
into Latin, and clothing what was originally true poetry and 
heroic legend, in the disguises of dull prose and incredible 
history. Many poetical works have, in another point of 
vicAV, been deprived of all their living influence on ages and 
peoptes, by the folly of their authors who consumed great 
natural powers in the vain attempt to do justice to a living 
fancy m a forgotten language. Of this I might quote a 
tliousand unhappy examples from the good nun Roswitha. — 
the author of a neglected poem in Latin upon the achieve- 
ments of the great Saxon emperor, which, had she written it 
in German, might have furnished us with a vabiabir monu- 



THE LATIN LANGUAGE. 163 

ment of language, and history, and poetry too, — down to 
Petrarch, who despised as juvenile and sentimental trifles 
those Italian love-poems which have rendered him immor- 
tal, and expected to establish his true fame on a now forgot- 
ten Latin epic, in celebration of Scipio Africanus; nay, I 
might cite before you a whole band of true poets, the greater 
part Germans and Italians, who flourished so late as the 
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and wrote every thing in 
Latin. 

But the consideration of all the very evident disadvanta- 
ges which resulted from the employment of the Latin lan- 
guage in the middle age, must not make us forget thai be- 
fore the several dialects now in use had acquired some de- 
gree of precision and refinement, a common language was 
absolutely necessary in Western Europe, not only for the 
purposes of religious worship, learning, and education, but 
even for conducting the international affairs of the different 
states. The language which was adopted forms the invalu- 
able bond of connection by which the Old World is united 
with the New. Besides, in the countries whose present 
languages are of Roman origin, the Latin, in those days, 
was scarcely considered as a foreign or even as a dead lan- 
guage, but rather as the old and genuine language of the 
land, preserved in its regularity and purity by the men of 
learning and education, in opposition to the corrupt and 
vague dialects of the common people — the vulgar tongues, 
as they were called. In those countries the Latin language 
ceased not to be a living one till the ninth or tenth century ; 
for about that time the language of the people, assuming in 
each country a separate form, began to be no longer viewed 
as a mere corruption of the old Latin, but as an altogether 
different language. The progress to this state of things was 
indeed so gradual, that we can seldom define the date of the 
great change. But it is evident that the delusion under 
which men lay in considering the Latin language as still 
alive, many centuries after it was really extinct, was very 
much prolonged by the perpetual use of that language in all 
the observances of religion, and in all the societies of the 
cloisters. It sustained daily alterations, but was never alto- 
gether laid aside. 

The great It'gacy and inheritance of all the know.edge 



164 LOSS OF ANCIENT MANUSCRIPTS. 

and ideas of the ancient world is, with justice, considered a«< 
a common good of mankind, which is committed to all ages 
and nations in their turn, which ought to be sacred in their 
eyes, and for the preservation of which posterity is entitled 
to call them to an account. The feelings of pain with which 
we contemplate any violent rupture in this bond, by which 
we are connected with the world of our ancestors, and those 
of disgust with which we repel the attempts of such a; 
would injure or weaken it, are on the whole just and honour- 
able feelings. But it is only when we find an age or a na- 
tion to have been capable of deliberately destroying, o: 
treating with utter contempt and neglect, the monuments of 
ancient refinement ; in short, it is only in the case of a tota^ 
rum of science that we can be entitled to heap upon thcin 
the terrible reproach of barbarity. No such total ruin ever 
did take place ; and wilful destruction, if it did sometime? 
occur in regard to the imitative arts, was at the least ex- 
tremely rare so far as literature was concerned. I know ol 
no wilful destruction of literary monuments but one — the 
burning of certain of the then extant amatory Greek poets, 
which took place in Constantinople pretty far down in the 
middle age, and was entirely owing to sacerdotal aversion 
for the extremely offensive indecencies of these authors. 
This moral squeamishness, which induced men to forget 
not only the indulgence at all times given to poetical ima- 
gination, but also the reverence due to all monuments of 
language and antiquity, may, it is true, appear very ridiculous 
in our eyes. But that the collectors and transcribers of the 
middle age (both in the Eastern and Western World) were, 
in general, tolerably free from any such over-scrupulous 
niceties, is pretty evident from the abundant collection of 
mdecent poems in both the ancient languages, with which 
we have it still in our power to regale ourselves. Unfor- 
tunate accidents, and the events of war, have indeed occa- 
sioned the loss of many interesting monuments both of litera- 
ture and antiquity. This has been the case even in the 
more recent times, and above all, since the invention ol 
printing itself How much more frequently must it have 
occurred in the times which preceded that invention, when 
instead of our enormous libraries of printed books, the 
^earned had nothing but manuscripts, and these so costly 



MULTIPLYING OF MANUSCRIPTS. I b5 

tliat no man could have access to many. Even in the most 
refined periods of the ancient world, long before Goths had 
possessed Rome, or Arabs Alexandria, whole libraries had 
fallen a prey to the ravages of hostile fire, and hundreds, 
nay, thousands of works had perished, of which no other 
copies were in existence. We are accustomed to lament 
over the loss of a few great works, and to inveigh with un- 
mitigated severity against the barbarity of the middle ages. 
But that the loss of a single work or a single author fur 
nishes no ground for accusing a whole period of barbarism, 
may be gathered from the well known history of the books 
of Aristotle. It appears that even among the ancients them- 
selves, such was the neglect of these writings, which we 
consider as among the most precious monuments of Grecian 
intellect, that there remained at one time but a single copy, 
— and that too rescued from destruction by an accident of 
the most extraordinary nature. This occurred in the very 
middle of the period which wo are used to admire as the 
most brilliant era of literature and refinement among the 
Greeks and Romans. And even allowing that historical 
criticism may furnish us with some reasons to doubt the 
literal accuracy of this account, yet that will very little affect 
my present argument. If this did not happen with regard 
to Aristotle, we are quite sure that the same thing happened 
to many other great authors, with only this difference, that 
the dangers from which his writings escaped proved fatal to 
heirs. In the western countries of Europe, after the time 
of Charlemagne, the multiplying of manuscripts was a work 
pursued with the most zealous and systematical application. 
I doubt whether the same object was ever honoured with so 
much public patronage, either in Rome or Alexandria, or 
any where else, during the most polished period of later an- 
tiquity. That even in this respect Christian writings and 
Christian authors were more attended to than any others, is 
not to be denied, and perhaps is scarcely to be blamed. But 
how many of the heathen and ancient Roman writers, were 
preserved exclusively in the West? Constantinople was 
never plundered by the Goths, nor subjected to the licence 
of any whom we are pleased to call barbarians, till the pe- 
riod , f the crusades and the Turks. And yet I have little 
doubt that ;hose Greek books which have been preserved 



1G6 MODERN EUROPEAN LANGUAGE. 

for us by the Byzantines, bear far less proportion to the in- 
calculable riches of the old Grecian literature, ihjn the 
Latin books preserved in the West do to the very limited 
literature of ancient Rome, 
) Upon the whole, in the first part of the middle ages the 
/ scientific education was very wisely directed into the chan- 
! nels most favourable for the maintenance of ancient learn- 
'; ing. After those studies which had an immediate refer- 
ence to Christianity, the first place was universally given to 
that of the Latin tongue — ^the only vehicle of learning which 
was then in use ; the most important parts of the mathe- 
matics were carefully taught ; and in the. cloisters, to pre- 
serve the writings of the ancient authors was not barely 
considered as a matter of duty, but formed the most favourite 
exercise of monastic skill. With regard to language, which, 
in our present subject of inquiry, occupies the most impor- 
tant place, we know that the pupils of the tenth century 
were taught rhetoric according to the rules of Cicero and 
Q,uintillian, and I should doubt whether either ancient or 
modern times could have supplied them with better guides. 
That the authors of the eleventh century wrote more agree- 
ably and perspicuously in Latin than those of the latest 
Roman age and the sixth century, is well known to all 
who are acquainted with the literary history of the time. 
In all those qualities of good writing which are attainable 
by men composing in a dead language, their superiority is 
most evident. Next to language and its monuments, nothing 
else was of so great importance as the preservation of the 
mathematics, which are the foundation of all knowledge of 
nature, and the sources of so many sciences, inventions, 
and technical expedients, which have the greatest influence 
on life. The rapid increase of wealth and cities, particu- 
larly in Germanjr under the Saxon emperors, and the flou- 
rishing state of architecture and many other arts which im- 
pljT- knowledge and science, are sufficient proofs of the labour 
and exertion which were in these times bestowed on preserv 
ing from oblivion the mathematical, mechanical, and tech 
nical acquirements of the ancients. 
Jt(v What we have most reason to lament is the separation 
which took place between the West and the knowledge and 
treasures of the Greek language. But even here there ;vas 



J'KRIOD OF GERMAN REFINEMENT. 167 

in truth no such thing as any absohVe separation. Th« 
Greek language was certainly not unknown in Germany, 
at least between the time of Charlemagne, who learned 
Greek himself in his old age, and established Greek profes- 
sors in his different cities of the empire, and that of the two 
last Othos of the imperial house of Saxony, who were both 
skilled in Greek sufficiently for the purposes of conversa- 
tion. Although, as might naturally be expected, the Bible 
and the Fathers were always the chiefs objects of attention, 
we know that Bruno, Archbishop of Cologne, who was 
also a descendant of the same illustrious house, invited 
karned men from Greece for the express purpose of ena- 
bling himself, and through him others, to become acquainted 
Avith the profane writers, the historians and philosophers of 
antiquity. Under the dynasty of the Saxon Caesars, who 
were perpetuall}^ connected by marriages with the court of 
Constantinople, the north of Germany was adorned with a 
profusion of beautiful churches, all more or less in imitation 
of that first model of all Christian architecture, the Gret k 
church of St. Sophia. Upon the whole, during this period, 
— from the tenth to the twelfth century inclusive, Germany 
possessed not only more political importance but also more 
intellectual cukivation, than any other country in Europe. 

The reproach, then, which is commonly thrown out 
against the Teutonic nations — that they introduced barbarity 
and ignorance into all those provinces of the Roman empire 
to which their victories reached, is, at least in the extent 
which is commonly given to it, altogether false and un- 
grounded. To none, however, of all these nations is it ap- 
plied with so much injustice as to the Goths, who lived at 
the time of the first northern inroads. For many centuries 
before these expeditions commenced, the Goths had been 
already Christians ; they were well acquainted with the im- 

f)ortance of regular laws, and with the relations of the 
earned and religious orders of society : and the truth is, 
that far from promoting any work of destruction in the Ro- 
man provinces, they were indefatigable, so far as then- 
powers and circumstances admitted of it. in forwarding and 
maintaining the interests of science. The only exception to 
this is to be found in those times when the Gothic tribes en- 
tered Italy imder the guide of a foreign, a savage, and a 



168 COMPARED WITH OTHER NATIONS. 

heathen conqueror; or when, in some particular instances, 
they were exasperated by party hatred and Arian bigotry. 
to take too severe revenge against the equal hatred and bigo- 
try of their Catholic opponents. Even the last flourishing 
era of what might be called ancient Roman literature took 
place under Theodorick; and never did the mock patriotism 
of Italians take up a more ridiculous idea than in the fa- 
vjurite theme of their later poets — the deliverance of Italy 
from the power of the Goths. In the time of Theodorick, 
and under the government of the Goths, Italy was just be- 
ginning to enjoy the opening of a new period of happiness. 
The true misery and the true barbarism began when the 
Goths were expelled, and Italy submitted her neck once 
more to the deadening tyranny of Byzantine eunuchs and 
satraps. Let us only compare for a moment the activity and 
life of Western Europe, her nationalities, her adventures 
and her chivalrous poetry, with the long and mortal sleep 
under which the Eastern Empire lay for a thousand years, 
and we shall have no difficulty in deciding where the 
charges of sloth and ignorance ought to fall. And yet the 
Byzantines were in possession of much greater literary 
riches, and of several useful inventions, with which the 
West was entirely unacquainted. The matter of chief im- 
portance in all civilization and in all literature is not the 
dead treasures we possess, but the living uses to which we 
apply them. 

But the effect was beyond all comparison more unfortu- 
nate in the case of those wandering and conquering Teuto- 
nic nations which were not yet Christians ; these were much 
more rude in their manners than those w^e have as yet been 
considermg; they had no acquaintance either with the so- 
cial or the scientific refinements of the Romans. Such 
were the Franks in Gaul, and the Saxons in Britain. If 
we must fix upon some period as that of complete void, — as 
a time of ignorance, darkness, and destruction — we shall 
find the nearest approximation to what we wish in the age 
which elapsed between the reigns of Theodorick and Char- 
lemagne. But while Italy remained bowed down under 
the barbarous oppression of Byzantium, the light of know- 
ledge had found its refuge in the cloisters of Ireland and 
Scotland ; and no sooner had the Saxons in England ro- 



THE AGE OF CHARLEMAGNE. 169 

reived the first rudiments of knowledge along with their 
Christianity, than they at once carried all branches of sci- 
ence to a height of perfection at that time altogether unrivalled 
among the nations of the West. By them this light was 
carried into France and Germany — there never more to be 
extinguished. For from this time knowledge was not only 
systematically preserved, but unweariedly cultivated and ex- 
tended, insomuch that the proper period of revival should, I 
think, be placed not in the time of the crusades, but in that 
of Charlemagne. But even in the darkest period of all, that 
between the sixth century and the eighth, the foundations 
were already laid for that mighty engine of instruction 
which was afterwards perfected by the wisdom of Charle- 
magne. The establishment of learned cloisters and brother- 
hoods had already commenced. It is to the after extension 
of these spiritual corporations, by w^hose exertions lands 
were rendered fruitful, and peoples civilized, and sciences 
useful, and states secure, that Western Europe is indebted 
for the superiority which she attained over the Byzantines 
on the one hand, who were possessed of more hereditary 
knowledge, and the Arabs on the other, who had every 
advantage that external power and proselytizing enthusiasm 
could afford them. That the result should have been what 
we now see it, could scarcely, I should suppose, have been 
believed to be within the reach of possibility by any cotem- 
pjrary spectator. While Alfred lived almost in the poverty 
of a poet, and while Qharlemagne practised in his own pa- 
lace the frugality of a monk, how must their attempts in the 
cause of science have been limited by the narrowness of their 
means! and what, on the contrary, would have been too 
much for Haroon al Rasched to perform — living as he did 
in the midst of the untroubled splendour of Bagdad, and 
having it in his power to forward the cause of science by 
all the aids which ingenuity could invent, or magnificence 
supply ! The result may give us an important lesson, and 
teach us not to repose our confidence in the munificence of 
kings. Science is not made to be cultivated in obedience 
to the command of a monarch. He lends it indeed a tem- 
porary favour, but it is only that he may increase his own 
%me, and throw additional lustre around his throne. Ca- 
.iphs and Sultans attempted in vain to effect what was 

15 



170 HIS EN«:OURAGE>IENT OF RELIGION. 

sIoAvly and calmly accomplished in the unpretending cJois 
lers of the West. ^.V 

The exertions of Charlemagne in securing the indepen- 
dence, and diffusing the establishment of religious houses, 
have entitled him to the warmest gratitude of Europe, and 
the admiration of every cultivated age. But we must not 
conceal from ourselves, that great as were the merits ol 
Charlemagne, both in regard to the vernacular and the i^aim 
I iterature of Europe, they were still inferior to those of Al- 
fred. That wise and virtuous monarch was not only, like 
Charlemagne, the unwearied patron of learning in all its 
branches ; he was himself a scholar and a philosopher, and 
he even contributed more than any other individual towards 
the elegant formation of the Anglo-Saxon tongue. But the 
successful expeditions of the Danes threw back the progress 
of England; and the literary establishments founded by 
Charlemagne in France and Southern Germany were dis- 
turbed, in their infancy, by the attacks made on the one part 
of his em.pire b}^ the Normans, and on the other by the 
Hungarians. The literature which flourished soon after- 
wards under the Saxon emperors was in every respect far 
superior to that of the days of Alfred or Charlemagne. At 
that time Germany was rich above all other things in good 
writers of history, from Eginhard, the secretary of Charle- 
magne. do\^Ti to "Ottovon Freysingen, a prince of the house 
of Babenberg, who was son to St. Leopold, and grandson to 
the great Barbarossa of the imperial family of Hohenstaufen. 
Her riches in this respect were indeed greater than those of 
any other country in Europe, nor is the circumstance to be 
wondered at, for she was, in fact, the centre of all European 
politics. It is a very common thing to hear all those Latin 
iiistories of the middle age, Avhich were written by clergy- 
men, classed together unr'erthe same contemptuous appella- 
tion of " Monkish chronicles." They who indulge in such 
ridicule, must, beyond all doubt, be either ignorant or forget- 
ful that these iVIonkish writers were very often men of 
princely descent ; that they were intrusted with the most 
in- portant affairs of governmeiTt, and therefore could best 
explain them ; that they were the ambassadors and travel- 
le-s of the times ; that they often penetrated into the remote 
East, anu the still more obscure regions of the North, and 



THE MIDDLE AGES. 171 

were indeed the only persons capable of describing foreign 
countries and manners ; that in general they were the most 
accomplished and intelligent men whom the world could 
then produce: and that, in one word, if we were to have 
any histories at all of those ages, it was absolutely neces- 
sary that they should be written by the Monks. The re- 
proaches which we cast out against the men and the m.an- 
ners of the middle age are indeed not infrequently altogether 
absurd and inconsistent. When we wish to depict the cor- 
ruption of the clergy, we inveigh against them for tyranniz- 
ing over kingdoms and conductir'jg negotiations ; but if we 
talk of their works, then they ^\ere all ignorant, slothful 
Monks, who knew nothing of the world, and therefore could 
not possibly write histories. Perhaps the very best of all 
situations for a writer of history is one not widely differing 
from that of a Monk^ — one in which he enjoys abundani 
opportunities of gaining experimental knowledge of men 
and their affairs, but is at the same time independent of the 
world and its transactions, and has full liberty to mature in 
retirement his reflections upon that which he has seen. Such 
was the situation of many of those German historians who 
flourished in the days of the Saxon Emperors. The more 
the study of history advances, the more universally are their 
merits recognized. But if Germany had the advantage in 
history, the superiority of France and England was equally 
apparent in philosophy. These countries, indeed, had al- 
ready produced several distinguished philosophical writers, 
even before the influence of the Arabians had introduced the 
monopolizing despotism of Aristotle. In the ninth century 
there arose that profound inquirer who, as it is doubtful 
whether he was a Scotsman or an Irishman, is noAv knoAvn 
by the reconciling name of Scotus Erigena. No less pro- 
found, though somewhat more limited in their application, 
were the views of Anselm. Abelard was both a thinker 
and an orator ; his language was elegant, and his knowledge 
of antiquity extensive, — praises which he shares with b's 
illustrious scholar, John of Salisbury. *" 

For each of the nations which speak Rom&nic dialects, 
there must have existed an interval of chaos arJC confusion, 
before they set themselves free from the rules c" the Latin 
language, and began to give to their own i ew rialect the 



172 THE ANGLO SAXON LANGUAGE. 

shape of an independent tongue. But for the interference of 
certain unfortunate accidents, the situation of the Teutonic 
nations must, in this respect, have been far more favourable 
than that of the others. For it is a thing infinitely more 
easy to cultivate at the same time two languages radically 
distinct, than to give a new form to a language which has 
either been changed by some internal revolution, or mingled, 
in great part, with the elements of some other language. 
That must always be a work of great labour and patience. 
But it happened very unfortunately for the development of 
the Teutonic language, that those of its dialects which were 
first cultivated were successively forgotten in consequence of 
political events, and that so the mighty work of its formation 
was more than once to be bea^un ag-ain from the commence- 
ment. The Gothic language, which was the first that at- 
tained some degree of regularity, perished along with the 
nation that spoke it. The Anglo-Saxon attained to an in- 
finitely higher degree of perfection, and we may even say, 
that, in the days of Alfred, it already possessed all the neces- 
sary parts of a complete literature ; a great many works had 
been composed in it, not only poems and translations, bu* 
also prose histories, and treatises concerning many depai 
ments of science. But this language also, although many 
of its monuments are still in existence, passed away in con- 
sequence of the Norman conquest, and a considerable inter- 
val elapsed before the present English language was formed 
out of the mixture of the Anglo-Saxon and the French. The 
work of polishing the Teutonic tongue was therefore to be- 
gin again for the third time. This took place in the ninth 
century ; for it was then that our present High Dutch began 
to be in some measure developed. If any attempts had been 
made upon it in the preceding century, they were irregular 
and unimportant in their results. In the monuments which 
we possess of it during the ninth century, we can perceive 
the same traces of weakness and unsettledness which charac- 
terize every language at the time when it is beginning to 
recover itself after the effects of a great mixture or revolu- 
tion in its elements. The High Dutch of that period was 
exactly m the situation in which the Romanic dialects were 
m the eleventh and twelfth centuries. We are accustomed 
to talk of our own language as having above all others the 



ORIGIN OF THE GERMAN LANGUAGE. 173 

ndvantage of being pure and original. This might oe very 
true in its utmost extent of the old Saxon language, but no- 
thing can be less so of our present German. Ours is a 
modern dialect, which arose in the Carolingian age out of 
the confusion of many old German dialects, and no incon- 
siderable infusion of Latin vocables; and ought, in truth, t(» 
be classed among those languages which arose out of the 
political intermixture of the Roman and Teutonic nations. 
Its origin and early development are, however, well worthy 
of mucli consideration, for it was long the language of the 
most cultivated nation in Europe, and its formation was the 
favourite object of some of the greatest geniuses the world 
has ever seen. The true old German language, that was 
originally and universally spoken by all the Teutonic tribes, 
was that old Saxon which attained the height of its perfec- 
tion in England under Alfred the Great. That the Saxons 
of Nor-thern Germany spoke the same language wnth those 
of England, admits of no doubt : and even the Franks ori- 
ginally made use of it. It was common to all the Germans 
of the North. The Romans made use of Frankish inter- 
preters in England ; the British Saxons required no inter- 
preters at all in Sweden : Avhen King Alfred entered the 
Danish camp in the disguise of a minstrel, he sung songs 
written not in a foreign language but in his own : and al- 
though there might perhaps be some small difference of pro- 
nunciation, he was perfectly intelligible to his audience. 
Which, then, it will be asked, of all these German dialects 
was the language of the poems collected by Charlemagne ? 
Not the Gothic, for that was entirely gone, or at best under- 
stood only by a few scattered inhabitants of the mountains 
of Asturia ; nor the High Dutch, for that language was only 
beginning to assume a regular appearance half a century 
later, and received its name of Frankish, expressly because 
it had its origin in the Carolingian age, the name of the 
ruling Teutonic tribe being used, according to the fashion 
of that period, to denote every thing that was Teutonic. 
Now it is evident that the poems collected by Charlemagne 
must have possessed some antiquity ; they must have existed 
for two centuries, or at least for one. I have little hesitation 
in saying, that I believe those poems to have been composed 
in tlie old Saxon language, the same which Alfred wrotf 
15* 



174 THE TEUTONIC TRIBES. 

and which was spoken by Charlemagne himself, whenever 
ho did not make use of Latin ; for we must recollect that the 
favourite residence of Charlemagne was in the Rhenish 
Netherlands, the old patrimony of the Franks, whose Ian 
guage was originally the same with that of the Saxons 
And if this be so, the remark which I have made is no 
merely interesting for the lover of language and poetry, bur 
may be of considerable importance to the student of histor} 
himself 

The origin of the High Dutch language seems to me t( 
je best explained in the following manner. The origina' 
seat of all the Teutonic tribes was on the borders of th^ 
Baltic Sea, and each of them introduced into its dialeci 
greater changes in proportion as it removed to a greater dis- 
tance from the neighbourhood of those ancient settlements 
The Goths, for example, were the first to extend their con- 
quests ; they founded a great empire between the Baltic and 
the Black Sea, and living there in the midst of many foreign 
nations, from each of which they were continually borrow- 
ing particular words, their dialect soon came to be intelli- 
gible only to themselves, and to assume all the appearances 
of a new and distinct language. In the southern regions oi 
Germany, above all in the Alpine districts, the common in- 
fluence of climate produced its effect ; and the Teutonic dia 
lect, spoken in those regions, became hard and guttural like 
all languages of mountainous countries. The inextricable 
mingling of the various Teutonic dialects in Southern Ger- 
many, was caused by the successive empire and colonizations 
of the Goths and the Franks. The intermixture of Latin 
is easily accounted for by the Roman colonies on the Dan- 
ube, and the early adoption of the Christian religion by the 
inhabitants of all those regions. 

Of all the Romanic dialects, the first which attained any 
polish was that of Provence, probably because it had less 
than any other been exposed to the danger of foreign, inter- 
mixture. The old language of the country had been very 
early forgotten in this first of all the Roman provinces, and 
the settlements of the Teutonic invaders in its territory were 
very short-lived and inconsiderable. To close, in one word, 
this hasty review of the modern European languages, the 
two dialects which first received a regular development wfve 



THE AGE OF THE CRUSADES. 175 

those of the countries which had been least exposed to the 
mixture of foreig'n inhabitants, — the Provencial, on the one 
hand, and the High Dutch on the other. When compared 
with the other more blended dialects, the first of these may- 
be considered as a pure Romanic, the other as a pure Ger- 
man language. Of three other Romanic dialects, which had 
been exposed to the greatest mixture of Teutonic, — the Italian, 
the Spanish, and the Northern French, — this last is the most 
removed from the Latin, and was the last to arrive at the 
highest point of its perfection. But the youngest of all these 
languages is the English ; in it the mixture was far stronger 
than in any of the others, in so much, indeed, that it is not 
easy to decide which of its elements — the Germanic or the 
Romanic — has the predominance. The interval of chaos 
and confusion which necessarily precedes any mixture ot 
languages, was of longer duration in England than in any 
other part of Europe. That even these circumst 'aces, how- 
ever, are not incapable of producing very favourable conse- 
quences, 'is sufficiently evident, not only from the character- 
istic beauty, power, precision, and elegance of the English 
language, but also from the high and peculiarly national 
spirit of the English literature. The English literature 
stands in the midst between the German and the Romanic, 
and is more original than either. 

The universal awakening of a new life and a youth of 
feeling in the age of the Crusades, peculiarly manifested it- 
self in the sudden and magical unfolding of that poesy which 
received, among the Provencials, the name of La Gaye 
Science^ and which, diffusing its influence over all the in- 
tellectual nations of Europe, gave birth to a rich and vari- 
ous literature of chivalrous poetry and love songs. Although 
it is the spirit of love breathing even from the chivalrous 
poems of that period, which forms in truth the distinction 
between them and all other poems of the heroic kind, I shall 
begin with considering those which were more expressly of 
an amatory nature. The poetry of love, therefore, flourished 
first among the Provencials, who transmitted it to the Ita- 
lians. The first Italian poets wrote frequently in the Ian 
guage of Provence. This language is now indeed altoge 
ilier exiinct, but many works composed in it are still pre 
served in manuscript collections. Next to France the ear 



176 LOVE POETRY OF THE AGE. 

liest flourishing period of the gay science was in Germany- — 
chiefly in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The love 
poetry of Italy attained not its perfection till it came into the 
hands of Petrarch in the fourteenth, and the proper era of it, 
among the Spaniards, was in the fifteenth century. Nay^ 
the last celebrated Spanish poet, who procured to himself a 
great name by poems of this class, was yet living far in the 
sixteenth century. This was Castillejo, who followed the 
first Ferdinand from his native country into Austria. 

The poetry of love was developed differently in the diffe- 
rent countries of Europe, and had in each a formation in 
harmony with the spirit of the nation. With the exception 
of the Italians, I imagine that no one nation borrowed much 
in this matter from another ; while, on the contrary, the 
poetry of chivalry was transplanted from one to another, and 
was considered the common property of them all. Even 
the form of the composition varied in each country. The 
only thing that was common to them all was rhyme, and 
indeed a very musical use of it, which at first sight might 
appear to be mere playfulness and profusion. But in all 
probability this universal coincidence is to be sought for in 
the nature of the music then in vogue, for almost all the love 
poems seem to have been made expressly to be sung. 

That the Germans borrowed their love poetry from that 
of the Provencials is very often asserted ; but I think there 
is little reason for thinking so, particularly as we are quite 
certain that the Germans had love poems of their own at a 
much earlier period. For even so early as the reign of 
Lewis the Pious, it appears that it was found necessary to 
address an edict to the nuns of the German cloisters, admo- 
nishing them to restrain their inordinate passion for singing 
k)ve songs or mynelieder. It is true that in the age of chi- 
valry some of the German princes, who had large posses- 
sions in Italy, wrote poems in the Provencial, but this is a 
matter of no importance in regard to the poetry of the Ger- 
mans. Had that been borrowed, there is no doubt but the 
minstrels of Germany would have been as willing to con- 
fess their obligations as Petrarch afterwards was ; and the 
more so, that the German authors of narrative chivalrous 
poems are fond of owning, even more frequently than wft 
could have wished, how much t: •'•v vere indebted to the in- 



GERMAN LOVE POETRY. 177 

vention of their Provencial or French predecessors. How 
ever this might have been, there is no doubt that the whole 
form, and character, and spirit of the German love poems 
are essentially different from those of the French or the Pro- 
vencial, The German collection of this kind is, moreover, 
by far the richest in existence. 

The circumstance which affords us most delight in these 
productions is the spirit of gentleness and tenderness with 
which they are imbued, and our delight is mingled with not 
a little of wonder, when we learn that their authors were not 
unfrequently princes and knights, with whose characters we 
are familiar in history, as among the boldest and the most 
heroic of their time. But this apparent contradiction is ne- 
vertheless very consistent with nature, and true tenderness is 
never so engaging as when it is united with manly valour. 
In the midst of the most warlike life nature still leaves room 
for the affections, and tempers the rage of arms with the 
soothing influence of love and compassion. That old melody, 
which is commonly ascribed to the English Eichard, breathe? 
the very spirit of calm dejectedness, and is, indeed, among 
the most precious of monuments, if it be really the produc- 
tion of the lion-hearted king. 

The softness of feeling, and the musical elegance of lan- 
guage by w^hich these German poems are distinguished, 
have induced certain critics to throw out against them the 
reproaches of uniformity and triflingness. The reproach of 
uniformity strikes me as being a very singular one ; it is as 
if we should condemn the spring, or a garden, for the mul- 
titude of its flowers. It is perhaps true enough that orna- 
ments of many kinds are more delightful when they occur 
singly, than when we see them gathered together in masses. 
Laura herself could scarcely have read her own praises 
without weariness, had she been presented at any one time 
with all the verses which Petrarch composed upon her even 
during the period of her life. The impression of uniformity 
arises from our seeing these poems bound together into large 
collections — a fate which was probably neither the design 
nor the hope of those who composed them. But, in truth, 
not only love songs, but all lyrical poems, if they are really 
true to nature, and aim at nothing more than the expression 
of individual feelings, must necessarily be confin fd within a 



178 ESTIMATION OF THE FL.>1ALE SEX. 

very narrow range both of thought and of sentiment. Of 
this we find many examples in the high species of lyrical 
poetry among all nations. Feeling must occupy the first 
place wherever it is to be powerfully and poetically repre- 
sented ; and where feeling is predominant, variety and rich- 
ness of thought are always things of very secondary impor- 
tance. The truth is, that great variety in lyrical poetry is 
never to be found, except in those ages of imitation when 
men are fond of treating of all manner of subjects, in all 
manner of forms. Then indeed we often find the tone and 
taste of twenty diflferent ages and nations brought together 
within the same collection, and observe that the popularity 
of the poet is increased exactly in proportion as he descends 
from his proper dignity, — when simplicity is sacrificed to 
conceits and epigrams, and the ode sinks into an occasional 
copy of verses. 

The second criticism which stigmatizes these poems as 
trifling, is indeed founded on truth; but I am extremely 
doubtful whether that prove an}^ thing against the merits of 
the poems. Even the ancients, although the full violence 
of passion is often enough depicted in their Erotic poems, 
have nevertheless recognized that in its nature the feeling of 
lave is a playful and sportive one, by the mode in which they 
have represented Cupid in their mythology, and the many 
beautiful alleo-ories and fictions which arose out of their idea 
of the childishness of love. That love itself was in the age 
of chivalry one of the most violent of passions, and often gave 
rise to the most daring adventures, and the most tragical ca- 
tastrophes, might be easily gathered from the general cha- 
racter of that time. The histories of these ages are full of 
such examples. But this serious and passionate side of love 
was very seldom brought forward in the poems of the age. 
These are not indeed so destitute of all illusions to the senses 
as the Platonic allegories and sonnets of Petrarch. But 
even in this respect they are not in general remarkable for 
any violent expressions of feeling. The favourite, almost the 
exclusive theme of these poets, was that view of the passion 
which opens the freest space for the exercise of the fancy. 
From that high estimation of the female sex which was ori- 
ginally peculiar to the Teutonic nations, after it had been 
•efined and exacted by the milder manner and loftier mo- 



OF EPIC POETRY. 179 

raiity of the Christian religion, there arose a systematic ten- 
derness of feeling- which has indeed long since degenerated 
into the empty forms of gallantry, but which, so long as it 
remained in possession of its power, was the fountain of every 
thing noble and graceful both in manners and in poetry. It 
was at least in some degree on account of the prevalence of 
such feelings as these, that the German poets have restrained 
themselves from filling their verses with ornaments which 
were certainly very much within their reach. The Pro- 
vencial court and laivs of love, and the metaphysical casu- 
istry which was elsewhere so unweariedly employed in the 
solution of amatory questions and problems, were never in- 
troduced among the Germans. Their compositions are in- 
deed rude and unskilful when compared with those of the 
accomplished and meditative Petrarch, or some of the early 
poets of Castille ; but in return they possess more strength 
of feeling, and manifest greater capacity of love for nature 
and the beautiful. 

Epic poetry belongs altogether to the world w^hich had 
gone before us. That poet of any refined and polished age 
who dares to be a poet after the manner of the minstrels of 
antiquity — to be truly epic — will always be looked upon as 
a remarkable exception ; he will be honoured and reverenced 
by all posterity, as a high gift of nature to the age and coun- 
try in w^hich he appears. But in dramatic poetry art main- 
tains her pre-eminence ; it is only in an age of knowledge 
and elegance that tragedies and comedies can be written. As 
youth in individuals is the period most abounding in feeling, 
so does lyrical poetry flourish most in the youth of nations. 
The age of Crusades was the youth of modern Europe. It 
was the time of unsophisticated feelings and ungovernable 
passions, the era of love, war, enthusiasm, and adventure. 

After the Crusades, perhaps, nothing had so much influ- 
ence in giving a new direction to the miagination of the 
European nations, as the expeditions of the Normans. The 
foundations of chivalry were indeed every where laid in the 
original modes of thinking of all the Germanic nations; the 
poetical belief in the wonderful, in gigantic heroes, in moun- 
tain spirits, mermaids, elves, and dwarfish sorcerers, had 
every where kept its hold in the imagination, from the days 
of the old mythology of the North. But into all these suner* 



180 PROGRESS OF THt SARACENS. 

stitioris, and all these opinions, anew life was infused by the 
arrival of the Normans. They were fresh from the North, 
and had breathed in its original purity the atmosphere of 
poetry and chivalry. Neither did they lose all this when 
they became converted to Christianity, and learned to speak 
French ; their character had strength enough not only to 
preserve itself unbroken, but to diffuse a portion of its influ- 
ence wherever they came ; in so much that a visible change 
was introduced by them not only into France, but into the 
whole of Europe. They were living models of adventure 
and enthusiasm ; they conquered England and Sicily, and 
led the way in the Crusades. Their whole opinions and 
lives were poetic, and the wonderful was the perpetual ob- 
ject of all their worship and all tneir ambition. It was by 
no means strange that the history of Charlemagne should 
have peculiar charms for the Normans. The whole of it 
vas immediately reduced by them to the shape of chivalrous 
;ioetry. The battle of Roncesvalles, in which the army of 
.he Franks was overcome by that of the Arabs and Spaniards 
md in which Roland died, was indeed, as it stands in history, 
f.n event rather unfortunate than glorious for the Franks 
and Charlemagne. But that, in spite of all this, the celebra- 
don of this battle had become very early a favourite theme 
of popular poetry, may perhaps be accounted for in this way 
— that, though unfortunate at Roncesvalles, Charlemagne 
was in the end successful, in setting limits to the progress of 
the Saracen arms, and erecting the Pyrenees into an impreg- 
nable bulwark before the liberties of Europe. The religi- 
ous view of the matter also might not be without its influ- 
ence. Roland fell in battle with the enemies of our faith ; 
and although vanquished on earth, there was the sure crown 
of victory laid up for him in heaven. He had died like a 
hero in the cause of God, and was classed by the n ultitude 
among the glorious army of martyrs. It must have been 
on some such principles as these, that the famous song of 
Roland — used in battle even by the Normans themselves — 
nad been composed. For otherwise the death of an unsuc 
cessful hero could scarcely have been selected as the subject 
of an animating war-song. In the age of the Crusades the 
whole history of Charlemagne, the battle of Roncesvalles, 
and the death of Roland, were represented by the poets as 



TRAVELS OF MARCO POLO. 18i 

scenes of a religious warfare. An example for the knights 
and adventurers of the Crusades was shadowed out in the 
glorious names and achievements of Charles and his Pala- 
dines ; nay, so far were things carried, that a fabulous Cru- 
sade in the ninth century was invented for the express pur- 
pose of asiribmg it to Charlemagne. The authentic history 
of the great Frankish Emperor soon became scarcely re- 
cognizeable under the disguise which it assumed — in the 
midst of sultans, magicians, genii, and all the fables of the 
East. By and by comical characters and adventures began 
to be mingled with the rest. In process of time, the oral 
narratives of the Crusades supplied the West with a copious 
assortment of oriental fictions ; and above all, men read the 
travels of Marco Polo, (a production whose impudent ex- 
aggerations procured for its author the name of Messer Mil- 
lione:) the consequence was, that there was nothing of the 
marvellous to be seen or imagined between China and 
Morocco which did not somehow or other find its niche in 
the poetry which treated of Charlemagne and Roland. That 
poetry lost all trace of the true achievements and wars of 
Charlemagne, (which in their original shape might have 
furnished excellent materials for a serious heroic poem,) and 
came to be considered merely as a form or vehicle wherein 
all possible fictions might be fairly introduced ; and where 
the fancy might practise her boldest gambols in the world 
of wonders and impossibilities. Such is the shape in which 
it appears in the writings of Ariosto. This great genius, 
confiding solely in the magic of his language and narrative, 
has ventured to make his poem as irregular as his materials 
were heterogeneous; he is continually breaking off one 
story and commencing another ; he scatters over every thing 
a sparkling of wit, comedy, and satire. He is the most m* 
imitabie of all poets. 

16 



LECTURE VIII. 



THIRD SET OF CHIVALROUS POEMS ARTHUR AND THE ROUND TABLE — IN 

FLUENCE OF THE CRUSADES AND THE EAST ON THE POETRY OF THE 

WEST ARABIC AND PERSIAN POEMS FERDUSI LAST REMODELLING OP 

THE NIBELUNGEN-LIED WOLKRAM VON ESCHENBACH, TRUE PURPOSE 

OF THE GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE LATER POESY OF THE CHIVALROUS 

PERIOD POEM OF THE CID. 



There are three different sets of fables and histories from 
which the subjects of the chivalrous poems of the middle 
age are principally taken. The first of these consists in the 
legends of Gothic, Frankish, and Burgundian heroes, dur- 
ing the times of the great northern emigrations ; these form 
the subjects of the Nibelungen-lied, and of those fragments 
which are collected together under the name of the Helden- 
buch. For this set of heroic legends there is in general 
some foundation in history : they all breathe the pure noith- 
ern spirit, are closely connected with the traditions of the old 
heathenish antiquity and mythology of the Gothic nations, 
and have for the most part been celebrated in the Scandina- 
vian as well as in the German dialects. The second great 
subject of chivalrous poetry is Charlemagne — more particu- 
larly his war against the Saracens, his defeat at Roncesvalles, 
and the achievements of his Paladins. The narratives which 
treat of these are in general very far removed from all his- 
torical truth ; the active Frankish hero is transformed in them 
into a mere indolent monarch, after the fashion of the eastern 
sultans, — a mistake which is probably to be accounted for 
by the circumstance of the chief poems concerning Charle- 
magne having been composed by Normans, who pretty na- 
turally imagined that great and warlike prince to have been, 
with all the glory which surrounded him, something not 
very unlike the monarchs whom they themselves found in 
possession of his throne. However this might have been, it 



CHIVALROUS POEMS. 183 

is certain that the poetical histories of Charlemagne became 
very soon intermingled with a large proportion of incidents 
purely comic, and altogether covered over with a veil of ab- 
surd and fantastic machinery, through which the original 
facts cannot, without great difficulty, be recognized. The 
late of the third set of chivalrous topics — King Authur and 
the Round Table — was not very different from that of the 
second. The original groundwork of history became soon 
vc.'ry nearly undiscernible from the clothing of oriental mar- 
vels — Crusades, and Indian achievements — which was heap- 
ed upon it. The historical Arthur, a Christian king of 
Britain, of the Celtic race, and his wars with the first hea- 
thenish Saxon invaders of England, could have furnished, 
indeed, a very limited range for poetical embellishment. But 
the very narrowness of the field was the cause of its unpa- 
ralleled richness of cultivation : and the poets made ample 
amends for the original insignificance of Arthur; by invest- 
ing him in " their fictions ^Aith all the attributes of perfect 
chivalry. He is the ideal of a knight, and all the poems 
which treat of him and his period, have more real object 
and purpose than those concerning Charlemagne and his 
Paladins. With the history of Authur there are besides in- 
terwoven many engaging poems, in which love is depicted 
in the most beautiful incidents of the chivalrous life. Of 
these the most remarkable is throughout of an elegiac cha- 
racter, as might be gathered from the name itself of Tris- 
tram. The tenderness of this elegiac colouring is well 
adapted to the nature of such a narrative : it harmonizes well 
with those feelings of darkness, depression, and perplexity 
w^hich rush into every mind, where we are drawn to survey 
the spectacle of a heroic life — when w^e reflect on the fleet 
ingness of youth, beauty valour, and the at best perishable 
and unsatisfactory nature of all earthly glories and enjoy- 
ments. The poetical clothing of the marvellous and the 
chivalrous, under which the fate of love is represented, has 
the effect of at once beautifying the fiction, and ennobling 
the feeling. It is in vain that modern poets, imprisoned as 
they are within a world of present and prosaic realities, en- 
deavour to atone for the want of poetry by a display of na- 
tural and moral knowledge, and the wiredrawn minuteness 
of psychology. Not many learn to know either the wond 



184 AUTHUR AND HIS ROUND TABLE. 

or man out of books. The true end of poetry is to awaken 
or restore aspirations and feelings which are the poetry of 
nature ; and b}'- setting all things in the most beautiful light, 
and investing all things Avith loveliness and magic, not so 
much to ennoble or exalt our feeling;?, as to preserve and 
sustain them in their natural element of beauty. Among all 
the great and epic poems of love and chivalry in the middlo 
age the first place is given by all nations to Tristram ; but 
(ha we may not be fatigued by uniformity of fiction, the 
airy and lively legend of Launcelot is placed by the side of 
its more grave and elegiac representations. 

But besides all this, the poetical historians of Arthur and 
his Round Table had an altogether different object in their 
view. They endeavoured, under the form of Arthur and 
his knights, (in whom was supposed to be represented the 
P'-rfection of all chivalrous virtue.) to shadow forth the idea 
of a spiritual knighthood, true, like that other chivalry, to 
the obligations of a solemn vow. proving itself like it by 
achievement and by suffering, and rising like it, by slow and 
gradual advances, to the summit of its perfection. This idea, 
however, is not allowed to interfere wath the external rules ojf 
their fiction, or to make them sacrifice any of those adven- 
tures and wonders of love and war in the east and the west, 
from which the poetry of those days derived its most favour- 
ite embellishments. Under the name of St. Graal there i^ 
brought together a whole train of such allegorical deeds of 
chivalry ; the knight is represented as labouring, by inces- 
sant exertions, to make himself worthy of gaining access to 
the holy places, and the deliverance of these is supposed to 
be the highest end of his calling. And yet there is every 
reason to believe that in all these poems the object was not 
merely to shadow out a spiritual and allegorical chivalry, 
but also to embody the peculiar ideas of a spiritual and yet 
a real chivalry, w^hich w^as then in all its glory — the chi- 
valry of the religious orders of knighthood, such as the 
Templars and the Knights of St. John. In a historical pomt 
of view, this may be of no inconsiderable importance. Les- 
sing, the first, so far as I know, who started the idea, was 
one well qualified, both by his erudition and his judgment, 
to form a proper opinion on such a subject : and they who 
ire familiar with such topics will, I imagine, have no difii 



INFLUENCE OF THE CRUSADES. 185 

culty in agreeing with him, provided they read again these 
old poems with a view to this particular consideration. The 
purpose is indeed sufficiently manifest even in the French 
romances of St. Graal, but infinitely more so in the more . 
elaborate productions of the Germans. 

This third set of fables, then, that relating to King 
Arthur and the Round Table, had a peculiar, sometimes a 
doubly, allegorical character of their own. But when I 
said that this set of fables, along with those of the Nibelun- 
gen and of Charlemagne, formed the only subjects of the 
poetry of the middle age, I perhaps expressed myself rather 
too strongly. A crowd of other fictions diverge in all points 
from these ; they formed only the centre point and kernel or 
the imagination. I must now, however, go on to consider 
under what varieties of shape this chivalrous poetry appeared 
among ail the different European nations, how long it lasted, 
by what gradations it gradually lost in each country its ori- 
ginal character and destination, and in particular by what 
circumstances it so happened that in almost no instance did 
it ever reach that degree of skilful beauty and development 
of which it might every where have been susceptible. But / 
before I proceed to this, I must pause to say a single word 
concerning the influence of the Crusades on the poetry of 
the West ; and, above all, to direct your attention to the 
share of that influence which originally belonged to the po- 
etry of the East. 

The chief elements of all this influence were, without 
doubt, no other than the incidents of the Crusades them- 
selves, and the power which the spirit in which their expe- 
ditions were undertaken must at all times have had of arou- 
sing the imagination. The achievements of Godfrey of 
Bouillon were sung in the very time in which they took 
place, and had no need of the mystery of ages in order to 
make them poetical. But the poets were, no doubt, more 
partial to the fabulous histories of Charlemagne and Ar- 
thur, because they were well aware that the more distant 
their scene was laid, the more room had they for the exer- 
cise of their fancy. 

The influence exerted on Europe by the poetry of the 
East, made known through the Crusades, was very incon- 
siderable in comparison with what we generally suppose it 
16* 



186 THE POETRY OF THE WEST. 

to have been ; and that which really did exist belonged in 
the greatest part — almost exclusively — ^to the Persians, not 
the Arabians. Among all the works of oriental fiection, 
there are two in particular which contain within themselves 
the best specimens of oriental fancy, and enable us at once 
to perceive in what this influence consisted, and what sort of 
spirit that was which was either first introduced into Eu- 
rope, or which, at least, augmented the originally kindred 
spirit of northern poetry, by means of the Crusades. The 
" Tales of a Thousand and One Nights," an Arabian col- 
lection of fantastic narratives, and the Persian heroic poetry 
of Ferdusi, who has been called at one time the Homer, at 
another the Ariosto of the East. 

The elder poetry of the Arabs before Mahomet, consisted, 
so far as we know, of lyrical heroic songs, which, ^A ithout 
making use of any peculiar mythology, simply celebrated 
warlike deeds, or the feelings of love — generally the fame 
of some individual hero and his ancestry. The spirit of 
pedigree formed almost the soul of the inspiration, and all 
the enthusiasm and zeal of the poet's imagination were ex- 
erted for the purposes of extolling the achievements of some 
one race, and undervaluing those of its rivals. And this is 
done with the same profusion of moral maxims and fanciful 
conceits which was so much in fashion all over the East. 
But in this old Arabian poetry there is to be found no pe- 
culiar mythology, no such world of fiction concerning gods, 
and heroes, and spirits, and the mighty struggles of the won- 
derful powers of nature, as is to be found either among the 
Greeks or the Persians, or in the poetical theology of the 
northern Scalds. Their poetry, moreover, is so very local, 
that, so far from being capable of being transplanted into 
other regions, in order to understand it perfectly, we ought 
to become profoundly versant in all the genealogies of the 
Arabs. In its want of any peculiar mythology, and in the 
circumstance of its being entirely dedicated to the fame, tra- 
ditions, relations, and opinions of a few particular families of 
Arabian nobility, this Arabic poetry bears a great resem 
blance to the Ossianic. There is, however, this great difl^e- 
ronce, that in the Ossianic poems there prevails that tone of 
lamentation which might be supposed to be most in harmony 
with the feelings of a vanquished, depressed, and almost ex- 



THE ANCIENT ARABS. 187 

piring people, — or, if we prefer another explanation, of a 
people inhabiting the desolate borders of the Northern Ocean, 
and saddened by the cold mists and vapours of that dreary 
region. In the Arabian songs, on the other hand, there 
breathes such a spirit of joy, pride, and valour, as might suil 
a victorious nation and a burning climate. The hostile tribes 
are here spoken of not with sorrows and lamentations, but 
scorn and hatred. The great disadvantage of such poetry 
consists in its locality ; it is an heir-loom, and cannot pass 
from its seat ; while, on the contrary, the fictions of a more 
mythological system of legends are easily transmitted from 
one people to another, and find many points of resemblance 
and coincidence among every nation which is so fortunr.te as 
to have any similar possessions. 

To shew how far a poetical mythology was removed from 
the spirit of the ancient Arabs, I need only refer you to a 
well known incident in the life of Mahomet. It seems that 
an Arab brought to Mecca the Persian heroic histories of 
Iskendar* and some other of the heroes of ancient days. 
These were received with much interest, being something 
altogether new and unknown. But Mahomet put a stop to 
the progress they were making, in the fear that his own 
poetry and his own purposes might be injured by their po- 
pularity. 

That the Arabs, however, contracted, during the subsist- 
ence of their Asiatic empire, a strong passion for the magical 
personages of the Persian poetry, is evident from the work 
to which I have already alluded. — The Arabian Tales. 
That many of these very tales, indeed, and in particular 
such of them as are most filled with wonders and fancies, 
are not genuine old fictions of Arabian growth, but rather 
Delong to the poetry of Persia, and in part probably to that 
o India — this has been long since acknowledged by all 
great orientalists. But if the Arabs, previous to their inter- 
course with Persia, really possessed any original and culti- 
vated chivalrous poetry of their own, besides those old 
lyrical ^\Tribe Songs^^ of which I have spoken, that is a 
circumstance of which the world has as yet seen no proof 

Elv^s and mandrakes, mountain spirits, mermaids, giants, 

* Alexander the Great. 



188 ARAB LITERATURE. 

dwarfs, and dragons, were all known in the northern my- 
tholog}- long before the period of the Crusades. These 
were not things borrowed, but only traces of the old original 
identity of the northern and the Persian superstitions. All 
that the western poetry owed to that of the east, with regard 
to these particulars, consisted in a certain southern magic, 
and oriental brilliancy of fancy, with which these famijiar 
forms came about this time to be invested. But the kin- 
dred spirit of the two mythologies was manifested by an- 
other and a still more important circumstance The Per- 
sian Book of Heroes^ in which the poet Ferdusi, about the 
beginning of the eleventh century of our era, collected to- 
gether all the legends and histories of the Persian kings and 
warriors, and celebrated them in the purest and most beau- 
tiful language of his country, and threw around them a 
blaze of fancy which has procured for him his name of The 
Paradisaic, — this book is deserving of great attention, 
even when considered merely as a repository of mytho- 
logical learning. The reign of Dschemschid is represented 
at the beginning of the poem as having been the golden age 
of the kingdom of Persia, and of the whole Asiatic world. 
Dschemschid himself is clothed with all the attributes of 
wisdom and victory, and appears like a bright image of the 
Eternal upon the earth. But after many happ}- centuries, when 
the Sun of Righteousness becomes darkened, and this best of 
monarchs falls in the fullness of his glory, the Land of 
Light becomes exposed to the ravages of its enemies. The 
"contest betwixt Iran and Turan, — the Holy Land of Light, 
and the Wild Region of Darkness — is from this time the 
centre-point of all subsequent fictions. In the victory of the 
great Feridun over the wicked Zobak, and his later more 
unfortunate contest with the fiend-like Afrasiab; in the 
government which this evil spirit establishes, and the dark- 
ness wdth which the whole empire is now invested, till at 
length, after a long series of adventures, Afrasiab is con- 
quered by King Chosru, the proper historical founder of 
the Persian kingdom — in all these fictions, however strange 
and diversified; we can still perceive, under the guise of he- 
roic legends, a perpetual adherence to the old Persian ideas 
concerning the contest between light and darkness. The 
same spirit breathes in ail their other poems, and the same 



THE CHRISTIAN AND PERSIAN SYSTEMS. 189 

adherence is every where perceptible. Now there is no 
question that a very similar set of ideas, respecting the con- 
test of light and darkness, (ideas to which, i.et it be remem- 
bered, the Greeks had nothing parallel,) were extremely 
prevalent in Europe during the middle ages ; I might al- 
most say that they were the ruling ideas there, from the 
moment when the influence of the poetry and allegories of 
the Scriptures began to be felt. The only difference betwef n 
the Christian and the Persian systems, with regard to the 
perpetual contest between light and darkness, consists in 
this, that in the former, the good Deity is lifted high above 
all competition with his enemy; while in the latter, the 
good and the evil principles are represented as being origin- 
ally distinct and independent powers. But all this lies in a 
higher region ; the distinction is just and great, but it is, 
after all, merely metaphysical. Christianity recognises in 
the Avorld of the senses and in the world of spirits, in nature 
and in man, the perpetual opposition of the good and the 
evil — the unceasing struggle between light and darkness — 
and this forms the true essence of all the maxims, emblems, 
and allegories of our religion. We may adopt what opinion 
we will concerning the origin of all these resemblances. — 
we may view^ them either as produced by the general iden- 
tity of human reason, or as the result of simple and unques- 
tioning imitation ; it is evident, that from whatever source 
the coincidence arose, it must have naturally given rise to a 
kindred set of imaginations and opinions, and to a kin- 
dred spirit of poetry in the two peoples among whom it 
was found. 

The later romantic poems of the Persians, such as Mei- 
nun and Leila, Chosru and Schirin, belong to a species of 
composition altogether unknown among the ancients, and 
have a strong resemblance to our European poems of love 
and chivalry in the middle ages. Yet the flowery and fan- 
tastic character of the oriental imagination has, of course, 
kept them very far asunder from any European writings, to 
say nothing of the still more important difference occa- 
sioned by the mode in w'hich love and every thing like 
moral feeling are treated by men brought up in the customs 
y){ the East. 

If we compare the old French tales and fabliaux with the 



190 PERSIAN LlVfJiATURE. 

Arabian tales, we shall have no difficulty in percei\-itig that 
.he greater part of these fictions had been brought from the 
East into Europe, in a great measure, it is probable, by the 
oral narratives of the Crusaders. The small variations 
which have been introduced, and the colouring of European 
manners which has so carefully been thrown over them, 
cannot conceal the identity of the inventions. At the same 
time it is by no means unlikely that there was a reaction in 
the case, and that in those days of unexampled intercourse 
oetween the East and the West, many European novels 
may have found their way to the professional story-tellers of 
the orientals. But there is no evidence that we ever bor- 
rowed any entire heroic fictions from oriental sources : even 
the fabulous history of Alexander, although the adventures 
of the Macedonian form the subject of one of the best of the 
Persian romances, was not derived to us from that quarter, 
but from a Greek book of popular legends, and the clothing 
of chivalrous manners, with which the fiction was afterwards 
invested, belonged exclusively to ourselves. Something 
similar occurred in regard to our old legends of the wars of 
Troy ; we derived m like manner oui ideas concerning the 
events of that period, not from the great poets of antiquity, 
but from another popular book of the same class. Our o\mi 
age. which is so rich in all historical knowledge, and which 
holds the first place in ever}'- species of elaborate imitation, 
may indeed look down with great contempt on such rude 
and childish attempts as these poems which represent the 
siege of Troy, and other matters of antiquity, under the dis- 
guise of chivalrous manners. That dark age, nevertheless, 
however great may have been its inferiority to our own tmre 
in every other respect, was certainly not without some ad- 
vantage over us in regard to its comprehension of the cha- 
racter, although not of the costume, of the earlier ages of 
antiquity. The middle age was the heroic age of Christen- 
dom, and in the heroic legends of the Greeks there is much 
that may recall even to us the manners of chivalry. Tan- 
cred and Richard, surrounded with their minstrels and trou- 
badours, stood in many respects in a much nearer relation to 
Hector and Achilles, and the Trojan rhapsodists. than the 
field marshals and poets of a later and more cultivated gen- 
eration. The achievements of Alexander were made th« 



THE HEROIC AGE. 191 

favourite the'^ie of the romancers, merely because they, oi 
all historical incidents, even without fictitious embellishment, 
bear the greatest resemblance to heroic traditions, and be- 
cause the marvellous which they contain is above all the 
true wonders of other conquerors, akin to that marvellous, 
whch is the dehght of poets. 

But the approximation of East and West was not the 
only approximation caused by the Crusades. The nations 
of the West themselves were brought into closer contact 
with each other than they had ever before experienced, and 
the fictions of all ages and all countries became inextrica- 
bly mingled and confounded. This chaotic mixture was 
in the end the chief cause why all the best, the most touch- 
ing, and the most peculiar of the European heroic legends, 
dissolved themselves into mere play of fancy, and lost all 
traces of that historical truth upon which they had originally 
been established. 

With regard to the whole body of romantic fictions still 
extant, whether connected or unconnected with the great 
subjects of the poetry of the middle age, — even with regard 
to those which are founded in part on true events, I know 
only one common standard of criticism. Their value is al- 
ways so much the higher in proportion as they are more 
dependent on a historical foundation, more national in their 
'riport and character, and more abounding in a free, natural, 
and unaffected display of imagination, — above all, in pro- 
poi'tion as they are imbued with the spirit of love. I do not 
allude merely to a mild, beautifying, and, at the same time 
amiable mode of treating every thing that is represented, but 
rallier to that spirit which forms the essential mark of dis- 
tinction between the fictions of Christendom and all other 
fictions ; which, where a tragical catastrophe is either in- 
separable from the nature of the subject, or introduced on 
purpose by the poet, never allows us to close with the single 
feeling of destruction, oppression, or an inevitable fate — 
which bids the victim of sorrows and death rise to a higher 
life with a more glorious presence, and offers to him who is 
overcome by earthly enemies or afflictions, the sure prospect 
of a recompense for all his endurance — a crown of vctory 
in the heavens. 

T shall now direct your attention to the farther deveiop- 



192 POETRY OF THE GERMANS. 

ment of the chivalrous poetry, or rather to its speedy corrup- 
tion and decline among the most illustrious of European 
nations, down to the time of the Reformation ; and I shall 
begin with Germany, because its literature of this age and 
species, although not the most rich, is at least the best 
known. I shall postpone to the end my consideration of 
the Italian literature of this period, because the spirit of chi- 
valry had at no time much dominion or influence on the 
other side of the Alps, where a peculiar set of tastes and 
opinions, all leaning towards the antique, had, even at this 
early period, begun to obtain an entire supremacy. 

The proper awakening and spring oi the present language 
and poetry of the Germans commenced about the time of 
Frederick the First, in the twelfth century. The first flou- 
rishing period was already over at the beginning of the 
fourteenth century, but a similar sort of poetry continued to 
be cuhivated. and the language continued to be treated after 
the same manner, down to the reign of Maximilian. From 
that time the prose writing was becoming daily more pol- 
ished, but the art of versifj'ing was ever on the decline, and 
the lano-uage of poetry retrograding into rudeness and bar- 
baritv— down to the commencement of the sixteenth cen- 
tury.' when, in consequence of the universal shaking and 
disturbance of ideas, there took place a total change in the 
lang-uage, which now forms a complete wall of separation 
between us and the old German taste in language and poe- 
try. Before the time of Barbarossa. that culture, by which 
Germany w^as so much distinguished in the days of the 
Saxon and earliest Frankish emperors, was, nevertheless, 
rather a Latin culture than a Teutonic. It couJd scarcely, 
indeed, have been otherwise in the seat of the Imperial Court 
Itself; for that formed the centre-point by which not only 
Germany, but the half of Italy, the half Romanic-Lotharin- 
gia, and the almost entirely Romanic Burgundy, were gov- 
erned and united ; it formed also the scene of almost all the 
political negociations of Europe: and. in short, the universal 
language — the Latin — was here an instrument of the near- 
est and the most indispensable necessity. The same circum- 
stances furnish us with an easy explanation how it happened 
that some of the emperors themselves, whose afilairs must 
have irequt^ntly occasioned them to be long absent from 



VIEW OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 193 

Germany, composed poems in the Romanic dialects : — I al- 
lude, in particular, to certain princes of the house of Hohen- 
staufen, some of whom, however, were also poets in their 
native language. The need of a common language of busi- 
ness was indeed sufficiently felt even within Germany itself; 
where, in addition to all the native dialects — at that time 
still extremely separate — (such as the North Dutch and the 
South Dutch, the Saxon, and the Alemannic) — there existed 
a very considerable population whose language was Sclavo- 
nic. With regard to the great improvement which appears 
in the German language during the reign of the first Fred- 
erick, I imagine this was produced, not so much by any 
immediate exertion or patronage of that monarch himself, 
as by the general circumstances of the time. Germany be- 
gan about that period to abound, more than ever, in petty 
princes — sovereigns whose dominions were too insignificant 
to occupy the whole of their attention, and who therefore 
were at full leisure to think of procuring for their courts the 
ornaments of music, poetry, and the arts. These were the 
real patrons of German literature. It was thus that such 
assemblages of poets and minstrels were collected around 
the courts of the landgraves of Thuringia, and still more of 
the Austrian Babenbergs. I have little doubt, that from 
some one of these poets, resident in Austria, the Nibelungen- 
lied received that form in which we now see it. Not only 
by the minuteness of his local knowledge, but also by his 
partiality for Austrian heroes, are the country and residence 
of the poet betrayed. He goes out of his way to introduce, 
by a bold anachronism, the Margrave Rudiger — the favou- 
rite hero of the Austrians. Even the advantageous manner 
in which Attila is depicted, may be accounted for somewhat 
in the same way; for many traditions concerning his achieve- 
ments have been at all times preserved among the Hunga- 
rians; and as these had such a close political connection 
with Austria, it may be supposed that Attila came to be 
considered with some degree of partiality, even among the 
natives of that country. When the Margrave assures Chriem- 
bild, who is desirous of espousing a heathen maiden, thai 
"• many Christian knights and lords have their dwelling in 
the court of Attila," he says nothing but what is perfectly 
consistent with historical truth. But it is impossible to 
17 



194 CHIVALROUS FICTIONS. 

avoid being a little amused with another passage, in which 
it is said, that in Attila's court men lived either according to 
Christian or Pagan customs, as it pleased them ; for that the 
prince knew no rule of favour, but rewarded all men accord- 
ing to the valour of their achievements, and the virtue of 
their lives. So strange is the perversity of fiction ! The 
v^'arlike and indefatigable Charlemagne we have already 
seen represented as an indolent and luxurious suhan ; and 
now we see the conquering and cruel Attila transformed 
into the likeness of a mild, magnanimous, and tolerating 
monarch. 

The last edition of the Nibelungen-lied may, I think, be 
placed, with great probability, in the reign of Leopold the 
Glorious, the last but one of the princes of the house of 
Babenberg ; and if we are anxious that the author of such 
a poem should not be left without a name, and insist upon 
connecting it with that of some well known genius, it is, I 
think, highly probable, that the poet was no other than 
Henry Von Ofterdingen, who was a native of Thuringia, 
but had his residence in Austria. 

This work is not only the most excellent of its time in 
respect of language ; its internal structure is also extremely 
regular and masterly. It has an almost dramatic conclu- 
sion, and is divided into six books : these again are subdi- 
vided into smaller sections, cantos, or rhapsodies, with a 
view, it is probable, to oral recitation or singing. The poet 
must have adhered with great fidelity to his ancient authori- 
ties ; for it is remarkable, that he has kept perfectly free of 
all allusions to the Crusades, although these were the perpe- 
tual theme and admiration of all the other poets of his age. 

The influence of the Crusades, and of those eastern pil- 
grimages which were then so prevalent, is, on the contrary, 
no where more conspicuous than in those very unequal com- 
positions which are classed together under the name of the 
PTelden-buch. 

Of the other classes of chivalrous fictions, that of which 
Charlemagne was the subject was. at first, indeed, received 
vvith great favour among the Germans ; but in the sequel, 
Arthur and the Round Table had completely the advantage. 
Rut were I called upon to give a general opinion concern- 
no the merits and defects of all the old German chivalrous 



GERMAN WRITERS OF ROMANCE. 195 

poems, I should have no hesitation in saying that I consider 
their chief fault to lie in this. — that they are all too much 
composed in the spirit and tone of the love poems, their pre- 
decessors. According to my judgm.ent, that would deserve 
to be considered as the best chivalrous poem, which, being 
founded originally on history or tradition, should express so 
much national feeling, and give to its marvellous so much of 
the character of power and greatness as might entitle it to be 
considered as a heroic poem, while, on the other hand, i 
should preserve in the department of feeling, all that beauty, 
and tenderness, and love, which formed the excellence of the 
sentimental poetry of the Troubadours. Whether this height 
of perfection was in reality ever attained b}^ any of those ac- 
complished masters of romantic poetry, who, in subsequent 
times, have appeared among the Italians, the English, and 
the Germans, I shall not take upon me to decide. The poet 
who appears to be most near it is Torquato Tasso. 

There are still extant several German romances, particu- 
larly concerning Tristram, which, in their unbroken melody 
of versification and softness of feeling, are entirely similar to 
the old poetry of Provence. But of all the German poets 
of that time, by far the most accomplished master of his art 
was Wolkram Von Eschenbach : he has written the histo- 
ries of the Round Table in a manner superior to any other 
poet of any country in Europe, and has seized in particular, 
with the highest success, the idea of that doubly allegorical 
method of treating them, to which I have above alluded. 
His hero is at once the type of spiritual warfare, and the 
ideal of a Templar. In his o^^ti days, the fame of Wolk- 
ram was as great in Germany, as that of Dante was in Italy ; 
and, indeed, he bears no small resemblance to that illustrious 
poet, both in his propensity to allegories, and in his love of 
displaying, with some little pedantry, Avhat was in those 
times a greater rarity than genius itself — his extensive erudi- 
tion. In respect of his leaning towards an almost oriental 
fulness of fancy in his descriptive parts, he bears perhaps 
more resemblance to Ariosto than to any other poet. It is 
with old poems, as with old pictures and statues ; when thesf 
are first dug up from some dungeon of concealment, and 
seen all covered over with the rust and filth of ages, it i? 
not easy to perceive at one view the real excellence which 



196 ORIGIN OF GOTHICK ARCHITECTURE. 

they possess. To comprehend their true merits, we musl 
wait till they are cleaned, and arranged, and inspected at 
our leisure. 

Although I have mentioned that the poetry of Wolkram 
Von Eschenbach is in some respect akin to Dante and 
Ariosto, I am yet far from admiring the custom of those 
who are perpetually tracing resemblances between the poets 
of different countries and ages. These resemblances are in 
general either insignificant or imaginary, for every true poet 
is a being by himself If we must compare the poems of 
that age to something, let it be, not to the poems of other 
times, but to the other works of art which were produced in 
their own time, and in their own country. They resemble 
in the sublimity of that solitary idea which lies at the bottom 
of them all, and also in that fulness of ornament which cha- 
racterizes their execution — ^those monuments of the Gothic 
architecture which we still survey with a mixed feeling of 
melancholy, delight, and wonder. Perhaps I might r*arry 
the parallel a little farther, and say that the Gothic architec- 
ture and the chivalrous poetry have both in a great me^.sure 
remained ideal, and never been brought to perfection in exe- 
cution. It may be, that the grandeur of th-e original con- 
ception comes upon us with a stronger impulse from this 
unfinished work than it might have done had they been 
adorned with the last exquisite touches of eleganca The 
terrible graces are ever conversant with the undefined. The 
spirit of the middle ages has nowhere so powerfully ex- 
pressed itself as in those monuments of an architecture whose 
origin, after all. is unknown to us. I speak of that st\le of 
Christian architecture which is characterized by its lofty 
vaults and arches ; its pillars, which have the appearance of 
being formed out of bundles of reeds ; its profusion of orna- 
ment • its flowers and leaves — and which is in all these re 
spects essentially distinguished from that elder Chrietian 
architecture, whose first and best model is to be found in the 
church of St. Sophia in Constantinople. That it was not 
invented by the Goths, is now admitted on all hands ; for the 
nation of the Goths had passed away long before any exist 
ing specimens of it were formed ; and we know that it was 
not an art which took centuries to perfect it. It leapt at once 
to perfection, and its oldest monuments are the best. Neither 



THE CATHEDRAL OF MILAN. .97 

IS it in any respect Moorish: or if it he so, in a very mcon- 
siderahle degree ; for we have many true old Moorish build- 
ings both in Sicily and in Spain, and these are all marked 
by a character quite peculiar to themselves. And with re- 
gard to the specimens of Gothic architecture which are to 
be found in the East, these are all, beyond any doubt, of 
European origin, and exist only in cities and churches which 
formerly belongecf to the Knights of the Temple and of St. 
John. The most flourishing period of this architecture was 
in the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries. Its chief 
seat was originally in Germany, and German artists con- 
structed, to the admiration of all Italy, the great cathedral 
of Milan. But it was by no means confined to Germany 
and the German Netherlands ; it flourished, on the contrary, 
with equal success in England, and in the northern parts of 
France. Who was the first inventor of it is entirely un- 
known ; I doubt indeed very much whether it was ever 
brought to its perfection by any one great architect ; for in 
that case it is difficult to believe that his name could have 
been utterly forgotten. I am rather of their opinion, who 
conceive that this system of architecture was perfected and 
diffused over all Europe by a small society of artists who 
were very closely connected with each other. But whoever 
might be the builders, this much is certain, that they were 
not mere heapers together of stones, but had all thoughts 
which they meant to embody in their labours. Let a build- 
ing be ever so beautiful, if it be destitute of meaning, it can- 
not belong to the fine arts. The proper display of purpose, 
the immediate expression of feeling, is indeed denied to this 
oldest and most sublime of all the arts ; it must excite the 
feelings through the medium of thought, but perhaps the 
feelings which it does excite are on that account only so 
much the more powerful. All architecture is symbolical, 
but none so much so as the Chnsiian architecture ot the 
middle age. The first and the greatest of its objects is to 
express the elevation of holy thoughts, the loftiness of medi- 
tation set free from earth, and proceeding unfettered to the 
heavens. It is this which stam.ps itself at 'once on the spirit 
of the beholder, however little he may himself be capable 
of analyzing his feelings, when he gazes on these far-stretch- 
ing columns and airy domes. But this is not aU every 
17* 



198 GOTHICK ARCHITECTURE DESCRIBED. 

part of the structure is as symbolical as the whole, and of 
this we can perceive many traces in all the writings of the 
times. The altar is diiected towards the rising of the sun, 
and the three great entrances are meant to express the con- 
flux of worshippers from all the regions of the earth. Three 
towers express the Christian mystery of the triune Godhead. 
The choir rises like a temple within a temple with redoubled 
loftiness. The shape of the cross is in common with the 
Christian churches even of the earlier times. The round 
arch was adopted in the earlier Christian architecture, but 
laid aside on account of the superior gracefulness supposed 
to result from the crossing of four arches. The rose is the 
essential part of all the ornament of this architecture ; even 
the shape of the windows, doors, and towers, may be traced 
to it, as well as all the accompanying decoration of flowers 
and leaves. When we view the whole structure, from the 
crypt to the choir, it is impossible to resist the idea of earthly 
death leading only to the fulness, the freedom, the solemn 
, glories of eternity. 
" >- I have said this much merely to point out in passing, how 
widely they err who despise indiscriminately the works and 
the spirit of the middle ages. They who do so are in general 
little acquainted with the works, and altogether incapable of 
comprehending the spirit of a period so remote from their 
own. 

In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the tendency of 
the Germans was chiefly to moral didactic poems, partly of 
allegorical, partly of satirical, import. Of this the fable book 
of Reineke Fucks may be cited as an example : and in truth 
if we would see a clear and precise picture of the course of 
human affairs in those ages, I know not any other book from 
which we may learn so much of all these things as from this. 
The witty author has contrived with great adroitness to let 
us see that the fox, whose success he represents among the 
animals, is only the type of that cunning which was in those 
days found to be the true road to preferment, both among 
knights and burghers. The chivalrous poetry of a former 
age erred in entirely departing from history, and becoming 
a mere display of imagination ; the poets now ran into the 
opposite extreme, and composed regular chronicles in rhyme. 
Thus the two elements of true heroic poetry were given not 



THE AGE OF THE TROUBADOURS. 199 

in conjunction, but in detail. The two last considerable spe- 
cimens of our elder poetry are to be found in the celebrated 
romances which were both published, one of them perhaps 
in a great measure composed, by the Emperor Maximilian ; 
the one of these is in prose, the other in verse. Both of 
these books a^e valuable on account of the spirit with which 
they are animated ; but the half-allegorical half-historical 
mode of composition then in fashion, was, it is probable, ex- 
tremely unfavourable to the noble genius of Maximilian — 
the last of the old Germans. 

The spirit of chivalry remained nowhere so long in all its 
active purity as in France and England, but the chivalrous 
poetry of those countries became very soon corrupted, and 
that even before it had time to reach any high degree of per- 
fection in its development. In France it degen I'ated into 
long prose romances, .which were quite destitute of the spirit 
of the ancient minstrelsy. In England its fate was more 
favourable; for although it was reduced to com;-.osii^ions ot 
no great extent, these undoubtedly were well qualified to 
take fast hold of the mind, and preserve alive the fe'^lings of 
chivalry in the bosoms of the people. The French, indeed, 
aje not without their old songs and ballads, and many of 
them are distinguished by great tenderness of feeling ; but 
neither in quality nor quantity can they for a moment be 
compared with the popular poetry of the English — more 
particularly of the Scots ; they are as much inferior ^o them 
as the northern French love-poems of a former age were to 
those of the Provencial Troubadours. Among the original 
poets of this old French time, Thibault, Count of Cham- 
pagne, and King of Navarre, appears to be entitled tc a high 
place, perhaps to the very first. The fictitious histories of 
Charlemagne and the Round Table were first composed m 
the French language, either after Latin authorities, e\ from 
the traditions of the vulgar. But in every department of 
literature which flourished in France, England also had her 
share, and to understand this with propriety, we must^take 
into our consideration what was the political situation Ox 
France at that period. Provence we must consider altoge- 
ther by itself; for not only had it a language of its own, but 
it was also a fee of the empire, belonging to Burgundy, and 
the flourishing state of Provencial poetry commenced ^roip- 



200 EARLY FRENCH LITERATURE. 

the time when Frederick Barbarossa gave its investiture to the 
Count Berengar. The northern and eastern provinces of 
France, on the other hand, were under the government of 
England ; and in truth the whole chivalry and chivalrous 
poetry, both of the French and the English, may be said to 
have belonged of right not to them but to the Normans 

Of the first progress of the French language, the celebra- 
ted Roman de la Rose gives, in spite of all its fame, no very 
advantageous impression. The French literature of the 
fourteenth century is indeed extremely poor ; but from the 
romances and what other productions of that period we have 
in our hands, it appears that the language had at that time a 
character very inferior in every respect to the contemporary 
dialects of Spain and Italy. The French language never 
assumed its proper shape till long afterwards. Nor was the 
case very different in England, where all the knowledge and 
genius of Chaucer could not introduce either uniformity into 
the language, or nature into the feelings of his countrymen. 
It is probable that the long wars between France and Eng- 
land, during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and the 
bloody feuds of York and Lancaster, prevented, in a great 
measure, the natural progress both of language and poetr-y 
in the two countries. That much of the literature of that 
age has perished there is every reason to believe ; but to 
judge from what remains, as the riches of the English con- 
sisted in ballads, so that of the French consisted in fabliaux 
and little tales or novels ; these were in a great measure the 
fountains from which Boccaccio drew his fictions, and, in- 
deed, they wanted only a style like his to procure for them 
that honour which is due to the rich imagination of their 
inventors. 

But even in this early age of French literature, it is easy 
to perceive a strong tendency to the same species of writing 
which is the most peculiar and original, and which has since 
become the richest of all its possessions. I mean those his- 
torical memoirs of particular men or times, in which there 
is displayed, with so much liveliness, the spirit of social ob- 
servation, and which in their portraitures of manners, and 
their minuteness of finishing, bear a considerable resemblance 
to romance writing. The first of these compositions (which 
form the most valuable part of French literature) is the work 



THE LITERATURE OF SPAIN. 20 

Df the faithful servant and friend of St. Louis, the Sieur de 
Toinville. 

The literature of Spain possesses a high advantage over 
that ol most other nations, in its historical heroic romance of 
the Cid. This is exactly that species of poetry which ex- 
erts the nearest and the most powerful influence over the 
national feelings and character of a people. A single work, 
such as the Cid, is of more real value to a nation than a 
whole library of books, however abounding in wit or intel 
lect, which are destitute of the spirit of nationality. Although 
in the shape in which it now appears the work was probably 
produced about the eleventh century, yet the whole body of 
.ts inventions belongs to the older period antecedent to the 
Crusades. There is here no trace of that oriental taste for 
the wonderful and the fabulous which afterwards became so 
predominant. It breathes the pure, true-hearted, noble old 
Castilian spirit, and is in fact the true history of the Cid. first 
arranged and extended into a poetical form. ver\^ shortly, it 
is probable, after the age of that hero himself I have already 
taken notice that the heroic poetry and m^nholog}" of almost 
all nations is in its essence tragical and elegiac. But there 
is another less serious view of the heroic life, which was 
often represented even by the ancients themselves. Hercules 
and his bodily strength, and his eating, are drawn in the true 
colours of comedy, and the wandering adventures and lying 
stories of Ulysses, have been the original of all amusing ro- 
mances. But, in truth, specimens of this sort of representa- 
tion are to be found in the histories of almost all great heroes. 
However powerfully history may represent the hero's 
superiority in magnanimity, in bravery, and in corporeal 
strength, it effects its purpose by depicting him not among 
the poetical obscurities of a world of wonders, but surrounded 
by the realities of life ; and it is then that we receive the 
strongest impression of his power, when we see it exerted in 
opposition, not to imaginary evils of which we have little 
conception, but to the every-day difficulties and troubles of 
the world, to which we ourselves feel that ordinary men are 
incapable of offering any resistance. We have many in- 
stances of this comic sort of writing in the Spanish Cid : for 
example, there is the description of his rather unfair method 
of raising money to support his war against the Moors, by 



202 SPANISH BALLADS. 

borrowing from a Jewish usurer and leaving a chest of old 
stones and lumber as his pledge ; and the account of the in- 
sult offered to his dead body by another of that race, and the 
terror into which he was thrown by the Cid starting up on 
his bier, and drawing his sword a span's length out of the 
scabbard. These are touches of popular humour by no 
means out of place in a romance founded on popular tradi- 
tions. But there is a spirit of more delicate irony in those 
sorrowful lamentations with which Donna Ximena is made 
to address the King on account of the protracted absence of 
her husband, as well as in the reply of the Monarch. The 
romances translated into our language by Herder are much 
later in date, but still preserve in great purity the character 
of the ancient fictions. They abound also in a Tery peculiar 
simplicity of expression and feeling, which are not so per- 
ceptible in the somewhat careless translation of our great 
critic. 

The Spaniards are as rich in ballads as the English and 
Scotch ; but theirs are possessed of certain peculiar excel- 
lencies to which the others have no pretension. They are 
not only popular ballads, intelligible and clear to the vulgar, 
they are also true national and heroic poems, which may be 
read with the highest admiration by the most refined critics. 
Popular ballads are in general a sort of lamentations over 
an antiquity of greatness more favourable for the poet. But 
it is always to be regretted when that poetry, whose business 
it is to keep alive the national feelings of a whole people, 
assumes a form which adapts it only for the vulgar. Such 
poetry has, moreover, this disadvantage, that it is its inevita- 
ble fate to become every day more unintelligible even to 
those for whose use it is formed. In general, however, po- 
ems of this sort are to be found in the greatest abundance 
among nations possessed of truly poetical feelings, whose le- 
gends, traditions, and national recollections, have been in- 
terrupted or mutilated by long protracted civil wars, or by 
some universal revolution and concussion of opinions. 



LECTURE IX. 



-TALIAN LITERATURE ALLEGORIZING SPIRIT OF THE MIDDLE AGE RE- 
LATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO POETRY DANTE, PETRARCHA, AND BOC- 
CACCIO CHARACTER OF THE ITALIAN ART OF POETRY IN GENERAL — 

MODERN LATIN POETS, AND THE EVIL CONSEQUENCES OF THEIR WRI- 
TINGS MACHIAVELLI GREAT INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES OF THE 

FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 



In the preceding lectures I have endeavoured to present 
you with successive pictures of the different Europen nations, 
the Germans, the French, the English, and the Spaniards, 
more particularly in regard to their poetry and their intel- 
lectual cultivation, down to the sixteenth century. The lite, 
rature of the Italians has alone been omitted, and that I have 
purposely left for this place, because I consider it as form- 
ing the link of connection between the poetry of the middle 
age, and the new literature of these later times; since the 
sciences, and through them the arts, were, in the course of 
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, so remarkably enriched 
and revived. 

The elder poetry of the Italians divides itself into two 
distinct classes ; one founded entirely on the philosophy ol 
the middle ages, of which the greatest example is the alle- 
gorical Comedia of Dante ; the other more nearly approach- 
ing to the models of antiquity, and standing in a very inti- 
mate relation with the study of the ancient languages. The 
two great poets, Petrarch and Boccaccio, were themselves 
men of learning, who took no inconsiderable share in re- 
viving the sciences and arts of the Greeks and Romans. The 
spirit of chivalry and chivalric poetry seems at no time to 
have attained the same sway and influence in Italy, which 
it exerted in France, Germany, and England. Even Dante 
at first intended to compose his great poem in Latin ; Pe- 
trarch talks of trie knightly poems and romances with con 



\ 



204 DANTE AND BOCCACCIO. 

tempt and aversion ; and although he has embalmed the 
very spirit of the middle age in his rich love songs, he 
seems, at the same time, to have rather follovi^ed mvolun- 
tarilythe ruling feelings of his contemporaries, than to have' 
written from any serious apprehension of the true nature 
and excellence of the modern poetry. He founded, in his 
own mind, his expectations of poetical fame, not upon those 
sonnets and canzonets "which have immortalized him, but 
upon the Latin epic of Scipio,* which is now only known 
and read on account of the reputation of its author. The 
same M^avering between the old Latin and the new Italian 
methods of thinking, speaking, and composing poetry, is 
equally evident in the third great M^riter of the first Italian 
period — Boccaccio. He endeavoured to embody the hair- 
splitting fancifulness of the Provencial love-queries and love- 
cases of conscience, and the amusing fictions of the Norman 
story-tellers, in a style of composition far too serious, too 
elaborate, and too ornate for his purpose. He has written 
novels upon the model of Livy and Cicero. Many of his 
works consist of unsuccessful attempts to interweave the 
mythology of the ancients into Christian histories, or to ex- 
press Christian ideas in the language and mythology of the 
ancients; as, for example, in a chivalric romance, where 
such affectation appears remarkably out of place, he intro- 
duces at all times God the Father, by the name of Jupiter, 
our Saviour, by that of Apollo ; and the Devil, by that of 
Pluto. In some of his chivalric poems he has chosen the 
subject, after the fashion of the middle age, out of the ancient 
mythology, with which, indeed, there is no question, he was 
far better acquainted than any of the German or French 
poets who had preceded him in the same field. In this un- 
fortunate choice he still manifests the same passionate predi- 
lection for the antique, and indulges in the same fruitless 
endeavours to reconcile it with those poetical feelings which 
are peculiar to the modern world. 

The most rich, dignified, and inventive of all the three 
great old Italian poets was unquestionably Dante; whose 
work, comprehending within itself the whole science and 
tmowledge of the time, the whole life of the later middle 

* Known also by the name of Ajrica 



ALLEGORIES OF THE MIDDLE AGE. 205 

age, the whole personages and events in which the poet 
personally had interest ; and not only all this, but also a 
complete description of heaven, hell, and purgatory, such as 
these were then conceived to be, is a production entirely 
unique, and can be ranked under no class of compositions. 
It is true, indeed, that many such allegorical poems were 
composed during the middle age, more particularly in the 
language of the Provencials ; but these have all perished or 
been forgotten. Dante has towered so high above all his 
predecessors in this sort of writing, that both they and their 
works have been completely overshadowed. If we are will- 
ing to study the poetry of the middle age without being 
biassed in favour of any particular theory, and without at- 
tending to the rhetorical divisions of the ancient critics, 
which are mostly ahogether inapplicable to it — if we are 
willing to consider it iti a point of view entirely historical, 
and to judge of it according to no standard but that of its 
own spirit — we shall find that it naturally divides itself into 
three species, the chivalric, the amatory, and the allegorical. 
By this last species, I mean, of course, that in which the ob- 
ject and purpose of the whole composition, no less than its 
external form, is allegorical, as is the case in Dante. The 
spirit of allegory has here its most peculiar triumph; but its 
influence is wide-spread and predominant over all the poetry 
of the middle ages. How often an allegorical spirit and 
sense was enclosed, even in the form of a romance of chival- 
ry, I have already hinted, in treating of the German mode 
of handling the fables of the Round Table and the Graal 
The difference consists in this, that in these allegorical ro 
mances the hidden sense is wrapped up in a representation 
of human life and transactions, while in Dante, on the con 
trary, the representations of human life are only insertec 
here and there as adventitious pieces of furniture in the art 
fully divided saloons and galleries of this world-em.bracing 
allegory. It appears that this universal tendency to alleo;ory 
which was so predominant in all the middle age, and which, 
in considering all the works of that period, we cannot too 
much keep in our remembrance, had been in a very great 
measure encouraged and extended by the influence of the 
Christian religion. 

Whether we consider the Bible in regard to the powerful 
18 



206 INFLUENCE OF THE SCRIPTURES 

influence which it has in reality exerted upon the whole 
hterature and poetry of the middle age and of modern times, 
or view merely the impression which, as a book, and in re- 
lation to its exterior form, it was and is calculated to produce 
upon the language, art, and spirit of composition, we shall 
find two peculiarities which are above all worthy of our at- 
tention. The first is simplicity of expression — the total want 
of ail artifice. Although the sacred writings are principally 
or almost exclusively occupied with God and the internal 
being of man, their mode of treating these topics is every- 
where lively and distinct; they contain little of what we are 
accustomed to call metaphysics ; they are free from all those 
distinctions and antitheses, those dead ideas and empty ab- 
stractions, with which the philosophy of every nation, from 
the Greeks and Indians down to the modern Europeans, has 
at all times been disfigured, whenever she has attempted to 
comprehend and explain, by her own unassisted powers, 
those highest objects of all reflection, God and man. The 
hereditary evils of endless bewildering, and of inconsistent 
and artificial reasoning, have adhered to her even when 
disclaiming all interference with those high questions and 
topics ; she has either retreated into the world of sense, or 
exerted all her powers in the mere confession of her igno- 
rance. The same simplicity and absence of artifice distin- 
guish even the poetical parts of the Scriptures, much as 
those abound in specimens of the beautiful, and above all ol 
the sublime. If we look, indeed, to the elaborate develop- 
ment and forms of writing, the simplicity of the sacred poesy 
prevents it from sustaining any sort of comparison with the 
richness of the Grecian compositions. But, on the other 
hand, in those great works, the utmost perfection of blossom 
is almost every where followed by the symptoms of decay, 
and to the highest polish of art there succeeds, not unfre- 
quently, an ambitious and luxuriant taste which delights in 
superfluous ornament and over-loaded artifice. There exist 
many causes in the imagination of man, in the whole com 
plexion of his perceptions, in the propensities and feelings 
of his nature, which may abundantly explain this universal 
appearance in the history of art; many influences which 
may poison and corrode the bloom of beauty, before yet it 
is perfectly unfolded, or which may reduce the noble sim- 



PECULIARITIES OF THE BIBLE. 207 

plkity of expression, after that has been perfectly displayed, 
to the false artifices of corruption. It is for this reason that 
even those Christian poets of modern times, who have taken 
either their subjects or their models from the Scriptures, 
Dante, Tasso, Milton, and Klopstock, resemble their origi- 
nals rather by individual traits of sublimity, than by any 
sustained imitation of the faultless simplicity of the Bible. 

A second peculiarity in ♦^he outward form and composition 
of the Scriptures, which hai iiad a very powerful effect upon 
our language and poetry, is that prevailing spirit of types 
and symbols so conspicuous not only in the poetical books, 
but in those also whose texture is entirely didactic or histo- 
rical. In one point of view the Holy Book may be consi- 
dered as a national possession of the Hebrews, common in 
some measure to several other oriental peoples, such as the 
Arabs and other tribes originally descended from the same 
stock with the inhabitants of Judaea. The prohibition of 
sensible images of the Deity might contribute in no incon- 
siderable degree to tbster this propensity among the Hebrews ; 
for the power of imagination, being confined in one direction, 
naturally seeks an outlet in some other. A similar prohibi- 
tion has produced a similar effect among the modern Maho- 
metans. But even in those parts of the Scriptures, where 
little or no room is afforded for the introduction of this old 
oriental species of typical poetry ; as, for example, in the 
Christian books of the Bible, the prevalence of a symboliz 
ing spirit is still abundantly apparent. This spirit has 
deeply implanted, and widely extended, its influence over the 
whole thoughts and imagination of the Christian peoples 
By means of this symbolical spirit, and the consequent pro- 
pensity to allegory, the Bible has come to exert the same in- 
fluence upon the poetry and all the imitative arts of the mid- 
dle age, and very nearly the same upon those of our own 
more cultivated times, which Homer did among the an- 
cients ; it has become the fountain, the rule, and the model 
of all our images and figures. It is true that in cases where 
the deeper sense of its symbolical mysteries was mistaken, or 
where the purpose which the figure had been intended tc 
serve was of a nature less serious and sacred, this spirit hns 
not unfrequently displayed itself in the corrupted form of kWo 
and fai>tastical allegory; for loaded ornament is at all tini' > 



208 RELATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO POETRY. 

of easier attainment than native grace, and the most brilliant 
display of art is a thing more common-place than the deep 
gravity of truth. 

In regard to both of the last mentioned peculiarities, had 
these only been every where felt and understood, the Scrip- 
tures might have afforded to Christians a high model of imi- 
tation, far more beautiful in itself, and far more universal in 
its application, than any thing which they could have bor- 
rowed from the Greeks. Had the spirit of Christianity 
thoroughly penetrated us with its enlivening influence, we 
could not have failed to derive from it, both in our language 
and in our composition, both in our science and in our art, 
a noble and sustained beauty, which is the same thing with 
truth, and whose injfluence must have in all respects been 
alike predominant and enduring. But in and by itself 
Christianity is, according to my opinion, no proper subject 
of poetry ; I except lyrical compositions, which are to be 
considered as direct emanations of feeling. Christianity it- 
self cannot be either philosophy or poetry. It is rather 
what ought to be the groundwork of all philosophy : for 
they who philosophize without taking Christianity for their 
guide, terminate either in doubt and inextricable perplexities, 
or in the cold and despairing void of unbelief. On the other 
hand, Christianity is removed far above all poetry ; the in- 
fluence of our sublime faith should indeed be every where 
around us, but here its ministrations should be felt, not seen, 
and we should beware of debasing, by familiarity, that which 
is most worthy of our reverence. 

The relation of Christianity to poetry and all the litera- 
ture of imagination, is one which must be considered with 
the deepest attention, whenever we would inquire into the 
comparative relations of the literature of the ancients and 
that of the moderns, and examine in how far the latter of 
these is capable of contending with the former, and mani- 
festing in its productions an equal degree of perfection. 
What should that poetry and that art have been, which had 
been exclusively occupied, down to the present hour, in re- 
presenting the faded forms and shadows of that antiquity 
whose spirit and life are fled, or which should have pretend- 
ed indeed to employ themselves upon our modern life, but at 
all times confined themselves to its surface and exterior, with- 



THE GREAT CHRISTIAN POETS. 209 

out daring to search into that deep point of interest and 
thought, from whence our meditations and our feelings have 
derived their peculiarity and their power! 

It is no wonder that so many whole ages and nations, 
and so many illustrious geniuses of Christendom, have 
striven to honour their religion, and embody its revelations, 
by consecrating to its exclusive service the poetry of which 
they were possessed. 

The truth of the matter is, as I have already hinted, that 
^he indirect expression of Christian feelings, the indirect in- 
fluence of the spirit of Christianity upon our poetry, if not 
the only just and true influence, has, as yet at least, been the 
surest and the most successful. In this sense it is that we 
may call the chivalrie poetry of the middle age (which, like 
the Gothic architecture, never attained complete perfection-) 
a truly Christian heroic poetry; for the characteristics 
which distinguish it from the heroic poetry of all other na- 
tions, and of the more remote antiquity, are in their essence 
and origin unquestionably Christian. The spirit, indeed, is 
that of Gothic antiquity, the fictions and the personages are 
derived from the pagan legends of the north, but all these 
are changed and purified by the predominant feeling and the 
faith of love, which have lent new beauty and sublimity even 
to the w^ildest play of the imagination. But so soon as the 
poet attempts to reveal directly the mysteries of our religion, 
we perceive that he has made election of a subject which is 
above the standard of his powers. This much is certain, 
that no attempt of this kind, however masterly the talents 
with which it has been conducted, has attained a degree of 
perfection sufficient altogether to remove this impression. 
We remark the defect in Dante, the first and oldest of all 
great Christian poets, and it is no less frequently to be ob- 
served in the works of his later followers, Tasso. Milton, 
and Klopstock. By Dante himself, there is no doubt that 
heavenly appearances, and holy ecstasies are described in far 
more vivid colours, and with more true powder of imagina- 
tion, than by any other Christian poet. But his most zeal- 
ous admirers must admit, that even in him the poetry and 
the Christianity are not always perfectly in harmony witn 
each other, and that his w^ork, if it aspire to the name of a 
manual of doctrine and theology, must found its pretensions 



210 THE GENIUS OF DANTE. 

not upon its general scope, but upon some particular pas* 
sages with which it is enriched. Although his genius was 
thoroughly poetical, and indulged itself with the greatest 
partiality in the boldest visions of imagination, it is evident 
that the prevailing scholastics of the day had exerted a very 
great power over this remarkable spirit. His singular poem 
is rich beyond all other example in its representations of hu- 
man life. By his plan of describing the three great regions 
of darkness, of purification, and of light, he has found an 
opportunity of introducing every variety of human charac- 
ter, incident, and fortune; he has depicted, with equally 
strong and masterly touches of horror, tenderness, and en- 
thusiasm, every situation in which the human spirit can be 
placed, beginning with the deepest gloom of hell and despair, 
and then shading away this blackness into softer sorrows, 
and illuminating these again with gradually brightening 
tints of hope, till on the summit of his picture he pours the 
warmest radiance of serenity and joy. Those who are able 
thoroughly to comprehend his spirit, and to enter into all 
his views and purposes, cannot fail to discover in his appa- 
rently most miscellaneous poem, the strongest unity and con- 
nection of design. It is difficult to know which are most 
worthy of admiration, the daring imagination which could 
first venture to form such a plan, or that phalanx of unpa 
ralleled powers which could accompany him steadily through 
.ts execution. The chief misfortune is, that neither this har- 
mony of plan, nor this vigour of execution, are very easy 
to be comprehended, for he that comes properly prepared to 
the study of Dante, must bring with him stores of science 
and knowledge of the most various kinds, far beyond what 
is required from the reader of any other poet. To his own 
contemporaries, and the immediately following generation, 
his geography and astronomy must have been far less foreign 
than they are to us ; his perpetual allusions to the Florentine 
history must also have been far less obscure, and even the 
philosophy of the poet was that of the age in which he 
lived. Yet even then it appears that his work stood in 
screat need of a commentary ; and the truth is. that at no 
time has the greatest and the most national of all Italian 
po' ts ever been much the favourite of his countrymen. After 
the lapse of several centuries his works, like those of a second 



GHIBELLINISM. 211 

Homer, have had the honour of being explained and illus- 
trated by a whole academy of literati at the public expense ; 
yet it is certain that he is very far from having become the 
Homer of Italy. The power which he possesses, (and this 
IS of course, in spite of all obstacles, far from inconsiderable,) 
is founded not upon any general knowledge or comprehen- 
sion of his works, but upon the exquisite force of a few single 
episodes and pictures. There are among the poets of his 
own nation none who can sustain the most remote compari- 
son with him either in boldness and sublimity of imagina- 
tion, or in the delineation of character : none have penetrated 
so deeply into the Italian spirit, or depicted its mysterious 
workings with so forcible a pencil. The only rpproach 
which we can find against him in regard to these things, is 
his perpetual Ghibellinism. This term may appear unin- 
telligible, but not to those who are well acquainted with the 
age of Dante. In those later periods of the middle age, the 
Ghibelline party were animated by designs which aimed at 
nothing but the establishment of merely worldly dominion, 
and conducted every enterprise in which they were engaged 
with a spirit of pride, haughtiness, and harshness, of which 
if we would form an idea we must study the histories and 
monuments of the time. Even in the most modern times 
we have had no want of Ghibellines, men who expect the 
whole salvation of mankind from dominion founded entirely 
upon worldly principles, and who are willing altogether to 
deny the power of that unseen influence, which is, however, 
sure to make its existence to be felt upon every proper occa- 
sion. But these Ghibellines of a more modern and an over 
refined age, are chiefly characterized by the docility and 
submissiveness with which they render themselves up as 
weak masses, ready to assume any shape which it may 
please that despotism to impress, whose dignity is increased 
in their eyes by every new infliction of its oppressiveness. 
The old Ghibellines of Dante's day were equally ambitious, 
but in their time pride and heroic strength were more com- 
mon things, and the numbers of rival combatants, and the 
collisions of great characters were sufficient to prevent con- 
sequences similar to those with which we are now acquainted. 
Then there existed a terrible anarchy, an universal struggle 
and ferment of mighty characters and powers, but these had 



212 THE LAURA OF PETRARCH. 

not been followed by that sleep of uniformity and lethargy 
which is not only the consequence and the curse, but the 
ministering opportunity also, and the deadliest instrument 
of despotism. The Ghibelline harshness appears in Dante 
in a form noble and dignified; but although it may perhaps 
do no injury to the outward beauty, it certainly mars in a 
very considerable degree the internal charm of his poetry. 
'His chief defect is, in a word, a want of gentle feelings. 
But these are mere spots upon the sun, and must not dimin- 
ish our admiration for this greatest of all Italian and of all 
Christian poets. 

\C I have in one of my former lectures indicated the proper 
situation in which we should view the character of Petrarch, 
when I took notice of the rich finishing which it was his 
fortune to bestow upon that love-poetry of several different 
nations which has already passed under our review. His 
elegant productions belong in truth altogether to that class, 
and we must compare his writings with the amatory pro- 
ductions of the old Spanish and German poets, before we 
can judge rightly of his merits, or even discover what was 
the leading characteristic of his genius. Petrarch is distin- 
guished from the other love-poets of the middle age, by 
greater skill in composition, and by a more intellectual and 
Platonic turn of sentiment. There have not, indeed, been 
wanting some among his admirers, who have gone so far as 
to maintain, that his Laura was no real mistress, but merely 
a fanciful personification of loveliness. Unfortunately for 
this hypothesis there still exist abundant proofs in the church 
records, not only that Laura was a real woman, but that she 
was a wife and the mother of a very large family. It is 
true, however, that over and above the praises of this lady. 
Petrarch has introduced a great deal of matter which caimot 
be any thing else than allegorical ; this is often too evident 
to admit of any sort of doubt, and is moreover, as I have be- 
fore observed, perfectly in character with the spirit of all the 
poetry of the middle ages. As a versifier and as an impro 
vcr of language, Petrarch is entitled to be considered as one 
of the very first artists who have ever made use of any Ro- 
manic dialect. 

Boccaccio was of as much use in polishing the prose as 
Petrarch in polishing the poetry of his coimtry : the only 



NEW STYLE OF COMPOSITION 213 

fault in his composition is a love of lojig and intricate peri- 
ods; from which, indeed, with the single exception of Ma- 
chiavelli; no great Italian writer is free. 

Each of these three Florentine poets, Dante, Petrarch, and 
Boccaccio, was the discoverer of a new path, the former o/ 
a new style of composition. The first was master of Alle- 
gorical, the second of Lyrical poetry ; the 4hird was the 
founder of the Novel and the Romance, and composed for 
the most part in prose, though many of his best fictions are 
occasionally adorned by poetry. Each of the three had a 
host of followers in his own department. But the genius of 
Dante was one of so very peculiar a cast that he was far 
from being well-fitted to be a model of imitation : and the 
crowds of sonneteers and novelists who followed in the tracks 
of Petrarch and Boccaccio, were such, that both of these 
kinds of writing, associated with the ideas of repetition and 
satiety, soon became wearisome in the extreme. The fifteenth 
century was already well advanced before the Italians, con- 
vinced that by persisting in these species of writing, no far- 
ther laurels were to be gained, resolved to create for them- 
selves a proper chivalrous poetry, and to desert for ever the 
Greek mythology and Trojan fable, which Boccaccio had 
introduced into the only productions of this sort w^ith which 
they had as yet been acquainted. The first predecessor of 
Ariosto, whose name has become celebrated, was the Flo- 
rentine Pulci. Of a poet so well acquainted with the an- 
cient writers, and living Avith and admired by the Medici 
and their polished courtiers, not a little might have been ex- 
pected. But I fear his work itself is not fitted to fulfil these 
hopes. It is one of those in which sportiveness and wit are 
introduced for the purpose of enabling the poet to ridicule 
himself, and thereby induce his readers to overlook the more 
lightly his want of poetical power, or the want of probability 
and connection in the incidents of his fable. In the narra- 
tive it is not easy to discover what parts are serious, and 
what written in the spirit of parody; besides, the wit itself is 
so purely local and Florentine, that we can make very little 
of ii, so that the work is chiefly valuable as a proof how 
very little the genius of Italians was imbued by nature with 
the true feelings of the romantic. 

A far more successful attempt was that of Boiardo, the 



2i4 CHIVALROUS POETRY OF ITALY. 

immediate predecessor of Ariosto, whose imperfect poem that 
masterly genius at first intended only to complete, but which 
he has since become the chief instrument of throwing into 
utter oblivion. Ariosto does not receive among those ac- 
quainted with the sources from which he drew, any credit 
for that invention and extravagant fulness of fancy which we 
hear very commonly ascribed to him. The whole body of 
his tales and fictions is to be found in his predecessors, and 
that too set forth with a power of painting not at all inferior 
to his. The superiority of Ariosto consists in the inimitable 
polish, lightness, and grace of his language and versifica- 
tion, and he has besides derived no small advantage from the 
skilful use which he has made of Homer, Ovid, and some 
other poets of antiquity. 

It is worthy of remark, that the chivalrous poetry of the 
Italians attained its fall perfection, not in Florence, but in 
Lombardy, where the Gothic style of architecture had also 
been introduced, and where the style of painting bore con- 
siderable resemblance to that of the Germans, or at least was 
less remote from it than the painting of Florence or of Rome. 
We need only run over the names of the chief old states of 
Italy, in order to see how infinitely less prevalent the spirit 
of chivalry, and its moral, intellectual, and poetical influ- 
ences w^ere in that country, than among the other polished 
nations of the west. In Florence the spirit of the people 
became at a very early period entirely democratic. In Ve- 
nice the ruling principle was that of commerce, and both 
manners and tastes had more in common with the orientals 
and the Greeks than with the Gothic west. In Naples the 
spirit of chivalry was never, after the Norman period, alto- 
gether extinct ; but a succession of unfortunate events, the 
rule of foreign d3masties, frequent changes of government, 
and various other causes, combined to prevent that state from 
taking such a part as it should have done in the intellectual 
cultivation of the north of Italy. In Rome, the centre of 
ecclesiastical affairs, more attention was bestowed upon chose 
splendid arts of imitation subservient to the ornament of the 
church, than upon chivalrous poetry. If any national feel- 
ings were ever excited among the Romans, they commonly 
took quite a contrary direction, and evaporated in empty 
dreams about the re-establishment of the Republic, and the 



ITALIAN SCHOOLS OF PAINTING. 215 

restoration of the city to her ancient glory; a specimen oi 
whicli we may find in those mad schemes of Rienzi, of 
which Petrarch himself was both an admirer and a partaker. 

These seem to have been the causes which prevented the 
spirit of chivahy from obtaining any power over the more 
early poetry of the Italians ; a poetry which has attained the 
greatest perfection of development, and which has become, 
as it were, a common possession of the whole of cultivated 
Europe. And such seem to have been the circumstances 
which may account for that leaning to the antique, and to 
philosophy, which can be discerned in the national poetry 
of no contemporary people. 

The fifteenth century was in Italy adorned by painting 
much more than by poetry. The prosperity of this art was 
commenced in this century, and it continued to flourish down 
till the middle of the next. Next to the revival of ancient 
learning, the age of the Medici, or of Leo X. has been prin- 
cipally indebted to art for its glory. At a period considei- 
ably earlier than this, it is true certain painters of Italy 
began to make some use of those fragments of ancient art 
which were continually before their eyes. They learned 
some notions of accurate dra wing, and something of human 
anatomy, and they could not avoid inhaling along with these 
some ideas of the beauty of form and the sublimity of expres- 
sion. But an intimate acquaintance with the antique was 
very rare, and many of the first and greatest masters were 
entirely deficient in it. And even among those who under- 
stood it the most scientifically, no attempts were ever made 
at strict imitation of the antique. When that came once to 
be in fashion, it is singular but true, that painting was al 
ready on the decline. In the early stage of its progress this 
art had acquired among the Italians a new and distinct char- 
acter of its own, founded upon the predominance of Christian 
ideas on the one hand, and that of national partialities on 
the other. Under t'he influence of both of these species o. 
inspiration, this art acquired a glory which was at that time 
unrivalled by the sister art of poetry. What poet of those 
times can we for a moment compare with Raphael ? The 
poetry was less original than the painting. The restoration 
of classical learning, and the wide circulation of so many 
illustrious works heretofore little known, produced their na 



216 DECLINE OF THE GERMAN LANGUAGE. 

tural effects in giving rise to a strong spirit of imitation 
The appearances of this manifested themselves very speed- 
ily in a manner by no means happy, among all the Euro- 
pean nations, but first of all in Italy. Even the greatest 
geniuses could not remain entirely free from the unfortunate 
influence ; Camoens and Tasso, the two first of modern epic 
poets, would, I have no doubt, have unfolded their talents m 
a manner much more powerful, free, and beautiful, had they 
been utterly ignorant of Virgil, and written without having 
before their eyes the necessity of adhering to a precedent. 
The revival of ancient letters was injurious, in yet another 
manner, to poetry and to language itself The fashion ol 
writing, and of writing poetry too^ in Latin became so uni- 
versal, that it gave rise to great neglect of the vernacular 
dialects. Next to Italy, Germany, in which classical studies 
were immediately embraced wdth unrivalled ardour, w^as 
the greatest sufferer : not a few true and excellent poets 
were, in consequence of their taste for Latin, lost to their 
own language and nation. For it w^as not till long after this 
time that men became satisfied that the only poetry w^hich 
has any pow'er over a people, is that composed in its own 
tongue. Under the Emperor Maximilian, himself a lover 
of German poetry, and himself a German poet, a crown was 
publicly bestowed on a poet w-ho wrote in Latin, but no 
similar distinction fell to the share of those who made use 
of their mother tongue. Even the plays represented before 
the court were commonly WTitten in Latin. The evident de- 
cline and corruption of our German language, so different 
from what its early flourishing condition might have led us 
to expect, have been in general ascribed to the convulsions 
and civil tumults of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 
There is little doubt that these must have greatly increased 
the evil; but the corruption of our language is quite appa- 
rent in writers who composed previous to the Reformxation, 
and who must indeed have received their education at a 
time when those alarming events of which I have above 
spoken, had not even been dreamed of The truth is, that 
the primary cause of the evil is to be sought for in that evei- 
inci easing rage for Latinity, which induced all those writers 
who were capable of improving the living language, to con- 
sider it as below them to make use of any other than the 



MISUSE OF ANCIENT LITERATURK. 217 

dead. In Germany, where no great works had as yet been 
produced, the effects of this fashion were of course far more 
injurious than in Italy, where there existed the writings of 
those three great Florentines, and where the language had, 
in consequence of their labours, acquired a form and stand- 
ara from which no succeeding authors could ever -^^ry wide.y 
depart. 

The fault of all this lies by no means on the literature 
of antiquity, but on the use, or rather on the misuse, to 
which men applied its treasures. The prodigious extension 
of historical science, and. through it, of every other species 
jf knowledge, — an introduction to so many fountains of in- 
formation, and so many glorious monuments of art and re- 
finement, — these things constituted in themselves a great 
and an invaluable good. But we shall be greatly mistaken 
if we believe that this abundant harvest was unmingled Avith 
tares ; and our expectations must have been far too sanguine 
if we had hoped that such a hidden treasure could be dis- 
covered, and those that found it be guilty of no absurdities 
in their first methods of applying it. The spirit of the mo- 
dern Europeans is much more the same throughout the dif- 
ferent centuries of our period, than might at first sight be 
imagined. Every where I observe the same misdirected 
passion which leads them to fasten upon every new and 
great addition to their inheritance of knowledge, as if that 
alone were worthy of more attention than the whole of their 
previous possessions, to pursue it with restless avidity, and 
forget in their admiration of it every thing besides, to apply 
the new ideas to subjects the most foreign from them, and. 
In short, to become blind to all but one point — till after this 
ferment of extravagance has subsided, things at last find 
.heir natural level, and the new takes its place among the 
old, without attempting any longer to exclude it. Like the 
revolutions of the political world, those of the world of let- 
ters are attended by violent convulsions, and the shattering 
of venerable institutions, and followed by periods of letharg^% 
W'hich often go far to destroy the good to which they mighi 
otherwise have given birth. In the age of the crusades. 
when the Western Europeans were introduced to an ac- 
quaintance with the science of the Arabians, and the philos- 
ophy of Aristotle, when the different nations of the world 

19 



218 



EPOCH OF EUROPEAN SCIENC£. 



were brought into contact with each other after a separation 
of many centuries, it might have seemed no great excess oi 
enthusiasm to expect that a mighty regeneration oi .'ntellect 
should have been the result of such an era. But it is suffi- 
f'.iently evident, that the effects of all these circumstances 
upon the spirit of the thirteenth century w^ere insignificant, 
indeed, when compared with what the most rational might 
have looked for. Their immediate and most general con- 
sequence was a pervading spirit of sectarianism, which at 
first confined its influence to the barbarous schools of the 
day. but soon insinuated itself into the church, and through 
her into the state, and into private life. Among all the sud- 
denly enriched and intellectually fruitful periods of Euro- 
pean history, the most brilliant is, perhaps, the fifteenth cen- 
tury. It was then that the systematic use of the commas? 
was adopted ; it was then that a long series of painfiir voy- 
ages and unsuccessful attempts w^as at last crowned with a 
. a full discovery of the way to India and America : and it 

y^ ^\^as then that the at once astonished and matured mind ot 
man became acquainted with the true extent and shape oi 
the earth, his habitation ; it was at the same period, that the 
hidden stores of ancient literature were laid open, and that 
in ihe art of printing, the most powerful of all instruments, 
both for preserving and enlarging human knowledge, was 
invented. Such accumulation of unexampled advantages 
might well be contemplated with the profoundest feelings of 
astonishment and admiration. But as I have already hinted, 
and as I mean yet more fully to illustrate, the old cause of 
misapplication attached itself to this sudden revelation of 
wealth, with a pertinacity no less striking than it had on 

/\ former occasions exhibited. The third universal revolution 
in ihe history of science, and the spirit of modern Europe, 
lies nearer our own tiTnes. The prodigious improvements 
in the mathematics, and. through them, in all branches of 
natural philosophy which took place in the seventeenth, and 
which have been carried on still farther in the eighteen", h 
century, ttie extension of all mechanical knowledge, and the 
improvements in technical expedients, have been such as to 
give the direction of human life an almost entirely different 
appearance. Who can deny that this knowledge is in itself 
dignified and admirable, and that nothing can be more ele- 



CONTEST OF THE OLD AND FOREIGN. 2l9 

vating to the human mind than a consciousness of superior- 
ity over the corporeal and sensible "world, so well harmoniz- 
ing with the original destination of our species? Had but 
this dominion over the external world been united with a 
correspondent dominion over ourselves — had but those phy- 
sical and mathematical modes of thinking which now began 
to exert so powerful an influence not only over intellect, but 
also over manners, been kept in their proper sphere and sta 
tion, we should have had no reason to complain. The con- 
sequences of these modes of thinking, and of the philosoj^hy 
to which they have given rise, in regard to religion, moral- 
ity, political and individual life, have been such, that the 
common opinion is, I believe, already very much against 
them, and that in a few years no farther difference of opinion 
respecting their tendency can be expected to exist. I 

I return to the fifteenth centur}^ I have already mfn-V" 
tioned the mjury which the exclusive predilection for the 
literature and language of antiquity did. by checking the 
progress of improvement both in the vernacular languages 
of modem Europe, and in the poetry therein embodied. 
The errors and absurdities of this period should astonish us 
the less, when we reflect that in truth the whole histoiy of 
modern intellect consists of little more than a narrative ot 
one continuous contest between the old and foreign — invalu- 
able, in so far as form and knowledge are concerned — and 
the new, the peculiar, and the national, from which the whole 
life and spirit of our active and effectual literature and poetry 
must ever be derived. 

I think it extremely probable, that several of the modern 
Latinists of the fifteenth century, in Italy, were actuated by 
a real desire of banishing the vulgar dialect, and re-estab- 
lishing the old language of Rome in its life and activit}?-. 
The mythology and language of antiquity were not merely 
applied with great want of taste to new and Christian sub- 
jects ; the abuse went so far as to deserve the name of im- 
piety itself, for it is certain that many writers conceived it lo 
be vulgar to talk of the Deity in the language of the BibJt 
and revived the plural " gods^' of the classics. The manne]> 
and modes of life of antiquity found most zealous imitatois 
among the ecclesiastics of the Christian metropolis, nor 
were there wanting some who extended their partiality not 



22C MACHIAVELLI. 

only to the politics, but to the religion of the old republics. 
But these errors never led to any serious consequences, and 
therefore it is no wonder their existence has well nigh 
been forgotten The intimate knowledge of antiquity, and 
decidedly Roman prejudices of one great writer of this age. 
Machiavelli, have produced effects much more lasting than 
the dreams of those more idle enthusiasts. He is the on y 
writer, not merely of Italy, but of modern Europe, who can 
sustain a comparison in style and skill with the first histo 
rians of antiquity. Powerful, simple, and straightforward, 
like Cassar, he combines the depth and rich reflection oj 
Tacitus, with a clearness and precision to which that great 
master was a stranger. He has followed no one writer as 
his model, but rather seems to be thoroughly penetrated 
with the spirit of antiquity, and to write as if under the influ- 
ence of a second nature, with that strength, propriety, and 
life, which are the peculiar characteristics of the ancients. 
The art of his composition seems to be quite involuntary , 
his concern appears to extend no farther than the thought. 
But how are we to judge or to explain the political system 
of this great genius, which has attained in modern times so 
unfortunate a predominance? The portrait which he has 
given of an unprincipled tyrant, set forth as the exam.ple and 
manual of all princes and governments, is justified by some, 
\)n the ground that Machiavelli meant only to place before 
the eyes of the world a representation of the corrupted con- 
diiion of the age and country in which he lived, leaving 
such a picture to produce its own natural effects upon the 
minds of those who might contemplate it. Perhaps it may 
be better explained by considering, that though Machiavelli 
was both a politician and a moralist, his true and most es- 
sential character was that of a patriot. I believe that his 
object was to inspire the great princes of Italy with the am- 
bition of giving liberty to his country ; and that, in his opi- 
nion, this was an object which ought to be pursued, even 
although it should be absolutely necessary to make use ol 
those doubtful, or even immoral means, by which others had 
(fleeted its degradation and subjection. He thought that the 
enemies of Italy should be fought with their own arms, and 
that nothing was unfair which might be of advantage to his 
rountry. The shrewdness of his judgment is well exempli- 



HIS WRITINGS. 22, 

fied in the short parallel between the French and the Ger-| 
mans, which he has left behind him. With a truly admi-^' 
rable acuteness, he shows that the power of the empire was 
in his day vastly overrated, and demonstrates on the other 
hand, that the power of the French king was most formid- 
ably on the increase. However profound and striking 
Machiavelli's characteristic of the two nations may be, he 
cannot be accused of having expressed it with any appear- 
ance of flattery. The one nation, on the contrary, are satir- 
ized in the most unequivocal terms for faithlessness, vanity, 
and treachery, which he seems to consider as inseparable from 
them ; while he reproaches the other with equal bitterness 
for that perverse love of freedom which, manifesting itself in 
nothing but disunion and distrust, had already, in his time, 
sapped the foundations of their empire, and whose baneful 
effects have been more openly displayed in the sequel. 

His opinions concerning the other nations of Europe 
were such as the fortunes of Italy, Florence, and himseh 
might well excuse. But the main principle which he has 
defended, namely, that it is proper to make use of immoial 
means in order to attain a good end, admits of no complete 
justification. In truth, the danger to Italy and to the world, 
consisted far less in the iniquitous schemes of a few petty 
tyrants, than in the wide extension of those pernicious prin- 
ciples upon which these indeed acted, but to which the mis- 
directed intellect of this refined Florentine gave a system and 
consistenc}?- which they had never before possessed. 

The chief fault of Machiavelli consists, however, not in , 
his defence of the principle that the end sanctifies the means. ' 
but in this, that he was the first who introduced into mo-' 
dern and Christian Europe the fashion of reasoning and de- 
ciding on politics exactly as if Christianity had had no 
existence, or rather as if there had been no such thing as a 
Deity or moral justice in the world. Before his day, the 
common faith of Christianity had formed a bond of connec- 
tion, and been considered as the fundamental principle of all 
government among the nalionf> ol Europe, and the peoples 
of Christendom regarding themselves as forming in some 
sort one family. The common opinion among mankind 
was, that as they themselves ought to serve their God, so it 
was their duty also to love and obey the princes appointed 
19* 



222 HIS ERRONEOUS OPINIONS. 

by heaven to rule over them ; and that in this sense the 
right of kings was divine. All the doctrines of legislature, 
law, and government, still reposed upon the invisible foun- 
dation of the church. Gf all these things, of the whole do- 
mestic and political arrangements of European life, Machia- 
velli takes no notice ; he is not contented with merely writ- 
ing Uke an ancient ; his thoughts are all fashioned upon the 
same model ; he is an ancient oolitician of the most decisive 
and unhesitating order; he believes that power is the sole 
measure of right, with a faith that might have been worthy 
of Rome herself in her most violent days of conquest and 
usurpation. Justice and truth he considers as mere super- 
fluous ornaments, and has no real respect excepting for in- 
tellectual strength and ability. That moral right should 
make no appearance in his writings is not to be w^ondered 
at, since it is his plan to regard men as if they owed no 
submission to any thing beyond themselve?, as if they had 
no connection with their Maker. As there can be no such 
thing as individual worth and virtue, so it is quite evident 
there can be no political justice, among those w^ho dis 
believe the existence of a Deity. Without that belief the 
utmost that can be hoped for is deceitfulness, hypocrisy, and 
hollow^ness of heart. When we are impressed with a sense 
of the existence of God, the whole of our thoughts and prin- 
ciples have acquired a dignity to which w^e could not other- 
wise aspire. The visible is every where dependent upon 
the unseen ; and as the body is moved and regulated by the 
soul, so are men, nations, and states, held together by the 
belief and the reverence of the Godhead. The moment we 
takeaway this soul, this internal and universal principle ol 
life, the whole composition is loosened and destroyed ; if we 
obscure the light, and obstruct its influence upon the whole, 
the individual members of the organic, or of the political 
body, may still preserve some power of life with them, but 
this life will be narrow, separate, insignificant, misdirected, 
and destructive, rather than beneficial. It will form a prin- 
ciple of disunion, not a bond of harmony. When that chain 
of morality and religion, by which states and nations are 
connected together, has once fairly been broken, the destruc- 
tive poisons of darkness, anarchy, and despotism, begin im 



INVENTION OF PRINTING, ETC. 223 

nediately to operate, and vice is ever ready to occupy the 
deserted station of virtue. 

The political disunion and corruptions of Europe, whose 
influence, in spite of the steady resistance of many excellent 
and truly Christian princes, has been ever on the increase, 
cannot indeed be accounted for by the abilities, however great 
and however misapplied, of any one individual ; the seeds of 
these evils lay much deeper than this. Still, however, he 
who devotes his talents to give principle, clearness, and form, 
to any existing engine of wickedness — he who renders its 
operations systematic, and its effects consequently more per- 
nicious, is an enemy to mankind ; and in so far, it is impos- 
sible to deny that the indignation of posterity has been, in 
some degree at least, the merited fate of Machiavr Hi. 

The two great discoveries of the fifteenth century, print- 
ing and the compass, were attended by several others which 
have had no inconsiderable influence ; such were the use of 
gunpowder and the manufacture of paper. As inventions, 
both of these belong to a much earlier period, but their in- 
fluence began now with their first application to purposes of 
practical use. The discoveries of this period, taken collec- 
tively, have been sufficient to give a totally new appearance 
to human society. The distance by which those nations of 
antiquity which were acquainted with the use of iron, and 
possessed, along with this, more or less knowledge of writmg 
and of the finer metals, were separated from those barbarians 
who had no acquaintance with these means of connection 
between man and the earth, between nation and nation, be- 
tween antiquity and posterity — these first instruments of the 
refinement and development of our species ; this immeasura- 
ble distance is scarcely greater than that which separates the 
periods prior to the invention of printing and the compass, 
from those which have succeeded. 

Even in the history of these inventions we find sufficient 
proof that the use to which men apply their discoveries is ot 
far greater importance than the discoveries themselves. The 
compass had long before this time been known to other na- 
tions, and yet neither had the old continent been circumna^ 
vigated, nor the new discovered. Printing and paper had 
long before this period been used in China, for the purpose 
9f multiplying gazettes, notices, and visiting-cards, without 



224 INVENTION OF GUNPOWDER. 

imparting any principle of activity to the benumbed spirit of 
the Chinese. 

The invention of gunpowder was regarded, even after its 
/ use had been universally adopted, as altogether injurious and 
/ corrupting. Not only did poets, such as Arjo-Sto, condemn 
it as an unhallowed invention, the enemy of personal bra- 
very, and the future extirpator of all chivalry ; the same out- 
cry was repeated by the gravest generals and statesmen of 
the times. Yet nothing could be more silly than these com- 
plaints; true valour and virtue are always sure to find suffi- 
cient room to display themselves. With different manners, 
and in a new form of war, the modern even the very latest 
times, have witnessed examples of devoted heroism well 
worthy of a place by the side of the most brilliant achieve- 
ments of antiquity, or of the chivalric age. Yet upon the 
whole, a discovery, which has increased the certainty and 
rapidity of the destructive influences of vv ar, and withal ren- 
dered these more systematic, cannot be reckoned among the 
^most fortunate. In the very first age of its use, gunpowder 
■ did more harm than has since been in its power. But for it 
those robberies of the European nations which followed the 
first discovery of America, could scarcely have been pollu- 
ed with so much blood and outrage. In this point of view 
it would almost seem as if some envious demon had attached 
to the glorious invention of the compass, an engine of evil, 
by way of turning even the best gifts of humanity to our de- 
struction. 

Even in regard to the use of paper, it may be doubted 
whether the operations of printing, as by its means extended, 
have really promoted the cause of science and intellect, or 
conduced to effects of a very opposite description. By means 
of this cheap material, the art of printing, in itself one of the 
most glorious and useful, has become prostituted in times of 
anarchy and revolution to the speedy and universal circula- 
tion of poisonous tracts and libels — things more destructive 
to the minds of the uneducated, than ever gunpowder was to 
the bodies of the undisciplined. Perhaps in making use of 
a somewhat rarer and more costly material, the press might 
have remained more true to its proper and original purpose 
— the preservation of the great monuments of history, art, 
and science. Instead of this, the cheapness of the materials 



\ 



OF PAPER, ETC. 225 

of printing has introduced a dangerous neglect of (he old and 
genuine monuments of human intellect, and a still more 
dangerous influx of paltry and superficial compositions, alike 
hostile to soundness of judgment, and purity of taste — a sea 
of frothy conceits, and noisy dulness, upon which the spirit 
of the age is tossed hither and thither, not without great and 
frequent danger of entirely losing sight of the compass ot 
meditation, and the nolar star of truth. 



LECTURE X. 



k FEW WORDS UPON THE LITERATURE OF THE NORTH AND EAST OF EU- 
ROPE, UPON THE SCHOLASTIC LEARNING AND GERMAN MYSTICKS OP 

THE MIDDLE AGE. 



As yet we have been almost entirely occupied with the 
literature of those of the modern nations which are settled 
m the southern and western districts of Europe. — the peoples 
whose dialects are either Teutonic or Romanic, or made up 
of a mixture of both, the Italians, the French, the Spaniards, 
and the English. The literature of these nations is beyond 
all doubt, both from its own nature, and from the wide-spread 
influence which it has exerted, by far the most remarkable 
and important. At the same time it would have greatly 
gratified myself, and very much tended to complete what it 
was my ambition to lay before you — I mean a full and na- 
tional view of literature, — had I been able to speak at length 
concerning those other great nations which inhabit the east- 
ern and northern parts of our continent. Every separate and 
independent nation has the right, if I may so express it, of 
possessing a literature peculiar to itself; and no barbarism is 
in my opinion so hurtful as that which would oppress the 
lansfuage of a people and a country, or do any thing which 
tends to exclude them from reaching the higher orders of 
intellectual cultivation. It is mere prejudice, unworthy of 
rational and thinking men, which leads us to consider lan- 
guages that have been neglected, or that are unknown to 
ourselves, as incapable of being brousfht to perfection. Some 
languages, no doubt, there are, which are in a certain de- 
gree unfavourable for poetry; a few which may perhaps be 
almost incompatible with any high exertions of that art: but 
I believe that there is no language which does not contain 
within itself the elements of perfect adaptation to all the re* 



GENERAL SURVEY. 227 

ally useful purposes of life, and to every important object of 
scientific writing in prose. Even although the literature of 
a particular nation may have exerted little influence over 
neighbouring peoples, the history of that nation's intellec- 
tual development, as this stands connected with its public 
Aveal, its fortunes, and its history, is, nevertheless, on its own 
account alone, a very interesting and a very instructive ob- 
ject of contemplation. Yet all I can do in regard to this 
matter amounts to little more than the expression of my sin- 
cere wish that it had been within my power to carry my 
researches so far, as might have enabled me to lay before 
you a complete view of European literature. For I am 
now too old to have any remaining doubt upon my mind, 
that in the history of literature, exactly as in most other 
things, very little dependence is to be placed upon the testi- 
monies and the opinions of others respecting matters, wherein 
the ignorance of languages prevents ourselves from being 
able to verify their statements. I must therefore be satisfied 
Avith a few very general reflections on these points, at this 
time when, in considering the epoch of a new literature and 
a resurrection of science, it might have seemed most neces- 
sary for me to complete my survey by a full examination of 
every nation and language into whicifi Europe is divided. 

The most favourable point of view from which such a 
general survey could be taken is certainly the sixteenth cen- 
tury — a period which forms, as it were, an isthmus of con- 
nection between the middle ages and modern times. So far 
as respects language itself, and the very great influence 
which that exerts over other peoples, the nations speaking 
Romanic dialects had at this period a peculiar and very 
manifest advantage. These dialects are so closely connected 
with each other, and the mother idiom from which they are 
all derived, the Latin, at that time the common language of 
the West, that the acquisition of any one of them is to those 
acquainted with another, prodigiously more easy than that 
of any language radically different. It was on this account 
that even in the middle age itself, and long before the effects 
of extended commerce began to be felt, the knowledge of 
these dialects became far more widely diffused than that of 
the other northern and eastern languages of Europe. It 
must; however, be remarked, that Spain remained at all 



228 CULTIVATION OF THE SPANIARDS. 

times cut off in some measure from the other districts of 
Europe, not more by geographical position, politics, consti- 
tution, and manners, than by her peculiarity both of language 
and of intellectual cultivation. That the peculiar language 
and cultivation of the Spaniards have attained within then 
own limits a very great degree of perfection, has been re- 
cognized of late years with more justice than formerly. The 
only relic of the old prejudice is the notion so prevalent 
among our critics, that the excellence of the Spanish lan- 
guage and literature has been almost entirely confined to 
poetry; whereas, as all well acquainted with the subject 
must know, one great advantage of the Spanish language, 
and, I might add, of the Spanish national character, consisted 
in this, that the prose of that language was much more early, 
and had been much more excellently developed than in any 
other of the Romanic dialects. The Italian language, with 
the single exception of Machiavelli, was never applied with 
much happiness of effect to the purposes of practical and 
political writing. The attempts at prose composition in the 
other Romanic dialects were all extremely unsuccessful. The 
French and Enghsh languages first received a formation 
adapted for practical utility and political eloquence in the 
seventeenth century ; and perhaps the advantage of so apply- 
ing them has always been confined to the capitals and the 
higher orders more than was the case with the Spanish."" At 
a very early period, indeed, the vernacular tongue of Spain 
was applied, and with the greatest success, to legislation and 
the most important concerns of social arrangement. Perhaps 
the very separation of the nation from the rest of Europe 
may have very much contributed to the early development 
of its language, which can boast of a very great number of 
well written histories, and in which a manly vein of elo- 
quence has continued even down to our own day, full of the 
most fiery spirit, clear, sharp, and intermingled on proper 
occasions with an abundance of exquisite wit and irony. In 
philosophy alone, Spain cannot boast of any names such as 
those which have appeared in Italy, Germany, England, 
and some other countries. In that department it must be ad 
mitted that she has produced no truly great writer. 

The German language has at all times been of more dif 
ficult acquisition than any one of the Romanic dialects, and 



OF THE GERMAN LANGUAGE. 229 

on that account the knowledge of it has always been much 
more limited. This ignorance of our language among the 
other nations, has been the origin of not a little contempt for 
our literature and philosophy. Yet I have no sort of doubt 
tnat the place I have assigned to the German nation in this 
history of literature is one of which a careful examination 
of facts will sufficiently manifest the propriety. Although 
our language is less known than most others, yet all those 
who inquire with any profoundness of research, either into 
the history or the language of the southern and western na- 
tions, must at all times be compelled to cultivate an acquain- 
tance with the German sources of knowledge ; and these will 
all confess that along with German political institutions and 
German customs of domestic life, a very great portion of the 
spirit of German thought has also passed into all the other 
nations of Europe. A thorough knowledge of the middle 
ages and of their history is entirely unattainable without a 
knowledge of the language and literature of the Germans; 
for the superiority of France and England during the last 
two hundred years has not been more decided than was both 
the literary and political pre-eminence of Italy and Germany 
during the whole period of the middle ages. These were, 
without any doubt, at that time the two first couritries in the 
w^orld. So far as our own country is concerned, it might 
be sufficient to mention the simple fact, that the art of print- 
ing, which was the greatest and the most important instru- 
ment of the revival of learning in the fifteenth century, and 
that mighty revolution in religion which gave a new form 
to the whole mind of man in the sixteenth century, were 
both German in their origin. But without going so far 
back, the truth is, that if the German language be less hap- 
pily developed for the purposes of business and political elo- 
quence than the English and the French, this defect is shared 
by the Italian language, and like it atones for the defect in 
those respects by its peculiar po^^^er in poetry. With regard , 
to the higher uses of science, I believe it will be acknow- 1 
ledged by any foreigner acquainted with our books, that oui ! 
superiority is clear and decisive over every language since 
the Greek. In the imitative arts, wherein the other polished 
nations of Europe have very little distinguished themselves \ 
the Germans occupy a place next and near to the Italians ' 
20 



230 THE SCANDINAVIANS. 

In the modern literature, which has sprung up among the 
different nations of Europe subsequent to the intellectual con 
vulsions of the sixteenth, and the first part of the seventeenth 
centuries, the language and mental cultivation of Germany 
have indeed been late to distinguish themselves. But, at 
least so far as science, history, and philosophy, are concern- 
ed, the probability is, that the latest literature will be the 
richest and the best. The praise of fertility, at least, will 
not be refused to us during the last half of the eighteenth 
century — a period in w^liich the literature and intellectual 
refinement of many other nations was either in a state of 
pause, of retrogression, or of complete corruption and decay. 
How defective we still are in many particular departments 
we are ourselves extremely well aware ; but in my appre- 
hension the time is not now at any great distance when an 
acquaintance with the language and literature of Germany 
w^ill be looked upon as indispensably necessary to every man 
of polite education in Europe. 

Of all the northern and eastern nations of Europe, the 
Scandinavian exerted, during the middle ages, the greatest 
and the most immediate influence over the poetry and think- 
ing of the West. The influence which they had in the cha- 
racter of wandering Normans upon Europe, and its poetry, 
has already been noticed. They took a great share in the 
Crusades ; and partook in every thing interesting, either in 
regard to reason or imagination, which was introduced or 
created in consequence of those memorable expeditions. The 
Icelanders traversed every part of Europe as scientific navi- 
gators, and collected in every quarter both facts and fictions. 
The oldest pure fountain of the poetry of the German na- 
tions, and the whole middle age, had been preserved in their 
Edda; and now they brought back with them, into their 
northern climate, the Christian and chivalrous poems of the 
southern Europeans. In many of these — particularly in 
the heroic poems of the Germans — the resemblance to their 
own northern sagas and personifications was very remark- 
able. These acquisitions they now^ transferred into their 
OAvn language with peculiar delight and success. Some 
parts of what they borrowed — every thing which was in its 
origin heathenish and northern, miany particular creations 
of fancy, and in general all of the wonderful which had been 



TENETS OF LUTHER. 231 

derived from the old theology. — they appropriated to them 
selves with new force, effect, and feeling, on account of their 
own more intimate knowledge of the Edda. That marvel- 
lous which in the poetry of the southern peoples had been a 
fleeting and trivial exercise of fancy, a mere idle ornament, 
acquired in the hands of northern poets a deeper sense, a 
■nore affecting truth, and a more important signification. It 
vvas thus that the northern versions of the Niebelungen came 
to possess, in some respects, the advantage even over the 
German heroic. The Icelanders, in this manner, and the 
Scandinavians in general, during the middle age, possessed 
a peculiar chivalrous poetry of their own. destined to expe- 
rience the same fortune with that of the other nations of 
Europe. — fust to be diluted into prose romances, and then 
to be split into ballads. This last effect was produced in 
Denmark exactly as in England and Germany, and pro- 
ceeded in a great measure from the same causes. — I mean, 
from that interruption which occurred in the national tradi- 
tions and recollections in consequence of the great changes 
that occurred both in the church and the state. The nationa^ 
poetry was left to be maintained by the common people alone, 
and was in their hands mutilated, corrupted, and degraded. 
I do not say this with any intention of stigmatizing ballads 
as entirely useless : on the contrary, these compositions in 
England, Scotland. Germany, and Denmark, although every 
where affording but a famt echo of the nobler poetry which 
preceded them, are still worthy of great attention both in a 
historical and in a poetical point of view. The old litera- 
ture of the Scandinavians was one common to the whole of 
the north. A great change in its appearance seems to have 
resulted from the Reformation; the vernacular historians, 
both of Denmark and Sweden, are full of complaints con- 
cerning the baneful effects produced upon their native lan- 
guages by that immense influx of High Dutch books which 
was followed by the general adoption of the tenets of the 
Saxon Luther. The later literature of Sweden, in particu- 
lar, is often alleged by the critics of that country as furnish- 
ing a melancholy proof that even a nation the most full of 
character and feeling is incapable of creating a rich and in- 
dependent literature, if it continues to shew an unceasing 
predilection for foreign idioms and models. The Danish 



232 LITERATURE OF THE SCANDINAVIANS. 

(iteratiire, on the other hand, of these latest years, has been 
rapidly developing- itself at the same time with our own, in 
a manner quite independent, but yet, as might naturally have 
been expected, with a greater leaning to the Germans and 
the English, than to the French. 

In looking back, one can scarcely help observing a cer- 
tain resemblance between the old situation of Scandinavia 
before the Reformation, and that of Spain. Each of these 
countries possessed a high degree of political and intellec- 
tual refinement, and each remaining apart, as it were, from 
the rest of Europe, formed within itself a complete and dis- 
tinct whole. The Normans, like the Spaniards, had their 
share in the universally chivalrous spirit of the middle age, 
which was indeed by no means foreign to their own particu- 
lar antiquities. They were also acquainted with the south 
>f Europe by means of travelling. But neither the inhabi- 
.ants of the Scandinavian, nor those of the Spanish penin- 
sula, were ever engaged in any commerce with any of the 
other European nations, of so intimate and multifarious a 
nature as that which connected France with England from 
the eleventh till the fifteenth, or Italy with Germany from 
the ninth till the sixteenth century. The literature of the 
Scandinavians was also entirely directed to subjects of na- 
tional interest, such as poetry, history, or the like. Like the 
Spaniards they paid little attention to higher departments of 
philosophy ; at least no remarkable woik of a purely scien- 
tific nature was ever produced by them. It is quite evideni 
that four countries alone in the centre of Europe, Italy, Ger- 
many, France, and England, as they have occupied the first 
place in the political history of modern Europe, so in the 
history of literature also have they distinguished themselves 
to such a degree, that from the time of the first awakening 
of the European intellect under Charlemagne, down to. the 
present day, it is scarcely possible to point out a single great 
incident in the annals of philosophy, a single remarkable 
discovery, extension, retrogression, or error, — or, in short, 
to fix upon a single great name in the history of philosophy, 
which does not belong to one of them. The great and dis- 
tinct differences between the philosophy of one of these na- 
tions and that of another, and between that of the same na- 
tion in different ages of its history, together with both the 



OF THE POLISH LANGUAGE. 233 

causes and the effects of these differences, I shall endeavour 
to lay before you in due time. 

Among the Sclavonic nations Russia possessed very early 
in the middle age a national historian in her vernaculai 
tongue ; an invaluable advantage and a sure token of the 
commencement of national cultivation. That this cultiva- 
tion had been more universal and extensive jn Russia pre- 
vious to the time of the Mogul devastations, is sufficiently 
proved by her flourishing commerce, her close connection 
with Constantinople, and many other historical circum- 
stances. But to say nothing of other causes, her subjection 
to the Greek church was alone sufficient during the middle 
age, and is in some measure sufficient even in our own time, 
to keep Russia politically and intellectually at a distance 
from the rest of the western world. Of those Sclavonic na- 
tions which belonged" ahogether to this part of Europe, the 
Bohemians already possessed under their Charles IV. a full 
and rich literature, a more near acquaintance with which, 
above all for historical purposes, might be very desirable. 
From all that we know of it, this literature appears to have 
followed the paths of history and science much more than 
that of poetry. That the Polish language, whose fitness for 
the purposes of poetry has been much celebrated of late 
years, did, even in the early part of the middle age, possess 
a treasure of national poems, is hinted by several writers, 
and is extremely probable from the character of the nation. 
But I myself am not in possession of the means either to 
verify or to disprove it. Should it, however, turn out that 
such is not the fact, and that the Sclavonic languages and na- 
tions of the middle age were entirely destitute of any such 
rich and peculiar poetry as that with which the nations mak- 
ing use of Germanic and Romanic dialects were endowed,—^ 
even if this should be so, it may perhaps be no difficult mat- 
ter to give a very rational account of the phenomenon. The 
Sclavonics, in the first place, took either no part at all, or at 
least a very slight part indeed, in the adventures of the Cru- 
sades. Secondly^ The spirit of chivalry, although not per- 
haps originally foreign and unknown, attained at no period 
the same penetrating and commanding power over them as 
over the other nations of Europe And lastly^ It may be 
that the peculiar theology possessed by the Sclavonics before 
20* 



234 HUNGARIAN POETS. 

the adoption of Christianity, was less rich and picturesque 
than the old Gothic system of superstitions, or at least that 
their heathenish ideas were more speedily and entirely eradi- 
cated by the prevalence of the true faith. 

There is no doubt that the Hungarians possessed, even in 
times of very remote antiquity, a peculiar heroic poetry in 
their national language. One great and favourite subject of 
this poetry was the migration and the conquest of the country 
under The Seven Leaders. It is evident from many passa- 
ges in the Hungarian chronicles that even after the intro- 
duction of Christianity these legends of the heathenish time 
were not entirely forgotten. There is at least every reason 
to think that those writers have actually copied from ancient 
poems of that sort. One such poem, indeed, a Hungarian 
scholar, by name Revaj, has rescued from oblivion ; its sub- 
ject is the arrival of the Madyari in Hungary. But the ex- 
istence of many such poems might easily be gathered from 
the perusal of the chronicle of the Royal Secretary, as he is 
called, Bela — ihe same person who fills so considerable a 
place both in the history and jurisprudence of his country. 
The materials upon which this chronicler wrought were, I 
have no doubt, historical heroic ballads, which he has trans- 
lated very diligently into prose, and interspersed with abun- 
dance of opinions, and would-be explanations from the cooler 
coinage of his own brain. But I am far from approving of 
the severity with which critics in history are accustomed to 
treat the good secretary. We should value the book for the 
relics which it embodies, sorely mutilated as these no doubt 
are, of the heroic legends and poetry of the Madyari ; and 
not look in it for what it would be absurd enough to expect 
we should find in any such place, philosophical inquiries 
into political affairs, or skilful elucidations of historical diffi- 
culties. Another theme of the Hungarian poets was Attila, 
whom they uniformly represented as a king and hero of their 
own nation. In these chronicles we find abundant proof that 
Attila and the Gothic heroes associated with his name in the 
Niebelungen-lied and the Helden-buch, were equally cele- 
brated in the language of Hungary, and that poems upon 
the&e subjects were in existence down to a period compara- 
tively near ourselves. It is probable that the destruction of 
the whole of this ancient poetry may be referred to the pe- 



HUNGARIAN LEGENDS. 235 

nod of Mathias Corvin, who attempted at once to change his 
Hungarians into Latins and Italians, the natural conse- 
quence of which was to bring into comparative neglect the 
old legends and poems of the country. The fate which be- 
fell Hungary in the fifteenth century Avould have befallen 
Germany in the eighteenth, had a certain illustrious monarch 
of that period, who, like Mathias, thought foreign literature 
alone worthy of his attention, been possessed of an influence 
as great and undisputed over Germany, as Corvin had over 
Hungary. Whatever of the old legends of Hungary and oi 
the monuments of its language and poetry escaped the bar- 
barism of this foreign refinement, fell entirely to the ground 
during the time of the Turkish invasions. The Hungarians 
have retained nothing but their predilection for historical 
heroic poetry. Several great masters of that art have ap- 
peared among them during the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- 
turies : and now in our own time, there has arisen one more 
illustrious than any of these, Kisfalud ; who has devoted 
himself in his mciture age to the national legends of his 
country with the same ardour and feeling which distin- 
guished the amatory poems of his youth. 

I close these sketches, these remarks upon the literature 
and language, more or less known and understood, of the 
different European peoples, with one general reflection 
which I have already thro^\^l out upon a previous occasion. 
Ev^ery independent and distinct nation has, as I believe, the 
right to possess a peculiar literature ; that is, to possess an 
improved and cultivated national language, for, without that, 
no dpgree of intellectual refinement can become truly na- 
tional and effectual, nay, the greatest, being embodied in a 
foreign vehicle, cannot fail to be tinged with a certain stain 
of barbarism. It is indeed a very absurd way of shewing 
our partiality for our own language, to desist from learn- 
ing any other, or even to deny the advantages which some 
foreign languages may possess over our own. Besides the 
ancient languages, there are several of the modern dialects 
so useful in regard to general cultivation, that whatever de- 
partment a man chooses for himself, he cannot fail to find 
one or other of them absolutely necessary for his purposes. 
The external relations of life have besides rend'ered the ac- 
quisition of so'-QB of them indispensable. The use of a foreign 



236 OF NATIONAL LANGUAGE. 

dialect in legislation and in courts of law is at all times dis- 
tressing, and I might even say imjust ; the use of a foreign 
dialect in diplomacy, and in the social intercourse of polished 
life, can never fail to produce injurious effects upon the ver- 
nacular language. But when the custom of so using a 
foreign dialect has once been fairly introduced, the evil is, at 
least for individuals, an irremediable one. It then becomes 
the duty of the whole cultivated and higher order of society 
to come forward together, to point out by their influence the 
proper route between two extremes of entirely neglecting and 
exclusively studying foreign languages ; to give to necessity 
that which she requires, but never to forget what is due to 
y ; our country. The care of the national language I consider 
j( as at all times a sacred trust and a most important privilege 
of the higher orders of society. Every man of education 
. should make it the object of his unceasing concern, to pre- 
■ serve his language pure and entire, to speak it, so far as is 
/ in his power, in all its beauty and perfection. He should 
i be acquainted generally, not superficially, not only with the 
\ political history, but with the language and literature of his 
country, and so far is the study of foreign languages from 
being hostile to all this, that without such study I believe no 
man can acquire the degree of perspicacity, or the facility of 
expression necessary for the purposes to which I have allu- 
ded. But the use of a foreign dialect in society should cer- 
tainly be limited to the strictest bound of necessity. The 
I obligation to watch over the language should be most sacred 
/ in the eyes of those who stand highest in the society ; for 
/ the more rank, and wealth, and consequence any individual 
\ possesses, the more has the nation a right to expect from this 
j individual that he shall contribute to the utmost of his power 
to the preservation and cultivation of that which is hers. A 
I nation whose language becomes rude and barbarous, must 
; be on the brink of barbarism in regard to every thing else. 
' A nation which allows her language to go to ruin, is part- 
ing with the last half of her intellectual independence, and 
testifies her willingness to cease to exist. The danger is no 
doubt great when a national language is assailed on the one 
hand by a systematic plan for its corruption, and on the other 
by a foolish and affected fashion which encourages, from 
mere iilliness, the use of a foreign dieilect. But in such mat- 



EUROPE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 287 

ters as these, the danger ceases to be, the moment we are 
sensible of its existence. In every thing which depends not 
upon the spirit of a moment, but the perseverance of an age, 
the victory is always sure to be obtained by the universal 
and calmly progressive resistance of men of sense. 

From this general survey of the different nations of Eu- 
rope, I return to the thread of my history. The great im- 
provements and discoveries which have given to the science 
and literature of modern Europe a new form and direction, 
belong, properly speaking, to the eighteenth century. But 
that intellectual cultivation which attained its mighty devel- 
opment in the eighteenth, received its shape and form in the 
sixteenth century through the Reformation. It was the 
moving spirit of that event which, both in the one of these 
periods and in the other, determined the way in which the 
intellectual cultivation should run. the end it should strive to 
reach, and the limits within which it should be confined. 
In both periods the apparent subjects of dispute and tumult 
were matters at first sight little connected either w'ith refine- 
ment or with literature ; for these were either politics, and 
the ecclesiastical constitution, the being, the limits, and the 
exertions of spiritual powers, or those mysteries of religion 
which lie too deep even for the investigation of philosophers 
themselves. The Reform ati'on. nevertheless, although these 
were apparently its objects, had the effect of shaking and 
ahering the whole of Europe, and thus came to exert a very 
great and multifarious, although certainly an indirect, influ- 
ence over literature and over all the exertions of intellect in 
whatever way applied. This influence was in part salutary, 
in part hurtful. To the first I refer the universal extension 
of the study of Greek, and the other ancient languages, 
which now came to be considered as indispensable in a re- 
ligious point of view, and which began therefore to be cul- 
tivated, if not more zealously, at least far more universally. 
in all the Protestant countries, — in Holland, in England, 
and in the north of Germany. The love for the ancient 
languages had in Germany, and above all in Italy, been 
such, even before the Reformation, that so far as these coun- 
tries are concerned, its influence was merely an additional 
circumstance in their favour. The contests and rivalries ot 
the contending parties were perhaps productive of little effect 



238 PAINTERS OF GERMANY. 

in relation to the true objects of their researches: for religion 
is a matter of faith and feeling rather than of disputation and 
dialectic combating". In a political point of view the effect 
of the great ferment has been far more happy : but perhaps 
even here the effect has been an indirect rather than an nn- 
mediate advantage, and that too discovered, like most other 
advantageous consequences of the Reformation, not instantly, 
(as its evil effects were,) but long after, when the agitated 
elements had had leisure to subside into a calm. The effects 
upon the imitative arts were pernicious. I do not allude to 
those operations of active destruction which took place here 
and there, but rather to that more general evil which result- 
ed from the arts being compelled to depart from their natural 
and original destination. The civil disturbances and w^ars 
which ensued, were, in like manner, as usually happens, 
more destructive to the arts than to literature. It was prob- 
ably in consequence of these events, that the national paint- 
ing of Germany, which had begun to flourish with so much 
success in the hands of Albert Durer, Lucas Cranach, and 
Holbien. stopped before it had time to reach the eminence 
it was fitted to attain. These great men were themselves 
contemporaries of the Reformation, but they had been edu- 
cated in the time before it took place, and in their art they 
found no followers. In the Protestant Netherlands, paint- 
ing became devoted to subjects of lesser importance ; and so 
employed, in spite of the utmost perfection in execution, it 
could never approach the superior powder and effect of the 
old painting which had been devoted to religion. In general 
there was produced a most unfortunate rupture between men 
and their ancestors ; and these, not contented with laying 
aside the contested points of faith or ecclesiastical govern- 
ment, thought it necessary to forget the whole middle age, 
and to despise the history, the art, and the poetry, with which 
its recollections were so intimately blended and united. 
The loss to Germany was peculiarly unfortunate. Such a 
break and throwing aside of the intellectual inheritance of 
our forefathers could scarcely indeed fail to be produced by 
a revolution so sudden and so entire. But now that all the 
causes of the bigotry have ceased to operate wdth any vio 
lence, it is time surely that we lay it aside, that we begin lo 
think liberally, and no longer to indulge in any contempt 



EFFECTS OF THE REFORMATION. 239 

either of the art or the refinement of the middle ages. 
The principle, that the Reformation was productive of .liber- 
ty of thought, is one that can scarcely be defended now. 
The universal freedom, the full emancipation of intellect, at 
the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth 
century, does not at least belong to the immediate conse- 
quences of the Reformation; it was produced by a great 
mixture of causes over and above the Reformation, and after 
all there is not a little reason to doubt whether the unfettered 
licence it has introduced has been so salutary and praise- 
worthy as we have sometimes heard. The near and imme- 
diate effect of the Reformation upon philosophy and freedom / 
of thmking, was one of constraint.. . The idea of such liber- 
ality as that which prevailed in Italy and Germany under 
theJVIedici, Leo X., and Maximilian, was a thing entirely 
unknown among the zealous Protestants of the sixteenth and 
of the first part of the seventeenth century. The establish- 
ment of such tyranny, political and intellectual, as that of a 
Henry VIII., of a Philip II., or of a Cromwell, was only 
rendered possible by means of the Reformation. He who 
is placed at the head of a new party, and a great revolution, 
at once religious and political, possesses a power so unlimit- 
ed over thought and intellect, that it is at least entirely the 
effect of his own choice if he does not abuse it. To the de- 
fenders of the old faith, on the contrary, under a Philip II., 
and under several of the French kings, every mean appeared 
allowable which could contribute to check the farther diffu- 
sion of the new opinions. Should any one attempt to prove 
the beneficial tendency of the Reformation by quoting in- 
stances of persecution from the times preceding it — such as 
the burning of John Huss and Jerome of Prague — my an- 
swer is, that these cruel enormities were in part at least the 
eflfects of political animosity, or if that be not sufficient, that 
abundance of similar horrors may be found after the Refor- 
mation in the history of the sixteenth and seventeenth centu- 
ries, and that too on both sides. The first great self-reflect- 
ing mind, the first writer of great and active power, whom 
the Protestants possessed after the period of the first ferment 
— Hugo Grotius hmiself, living in the freest country then 
existing, could not escape imprisonment and persecution 
On the other hand, the dangerous abuses which some haci 



240 ITALY IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 

made of liberty, led to narrow-mindedneps and oppression oa 
the part of rulers otherwise well disposed to be liberal. In 
Italy, in particular, a speedy termination was put to the then 
rapidly increasing progress of philosophy ; insomuch that a 
fact soon became to be doubted, which seems to me abun- 
dantly clear and evident, — I mean the natural capacity o. 
that ingenious nation for the higher exertions of intellectual 
inquiry. The most distinguished philosophical talents pos- 
sessed by Italy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, 
took a turn so unfortunate that they have been almost en- 
tirely lost to their country, their doctrines having become 
adverse not only to the spirit of the Christian church, but to 
all those principles of moral belief without which there is 
no safety in the social intercourse of men. In the world ol 
intellect, as well as in that of politics, the sure consequence 
of anarchy is despotism, and oppression is again invariably 
the harbinger of lawlessness. So that there is a perpetual 
flux and reflux from the one of these extremes to the other, 
both alike dangerous, unless some third and higher influence 
intervenes, or the whole bond of constitution is renewed. 

When certain panegyrists of the Reformation represent 
this as having been in itself alone a step forward of the human 
mind, and of philosophy — a deliverance from erroi and pre- 
judice — they are just taking for granted the very fact upon 
which we are at issue. One should think, also, that men 
might be rendered more cautious in the use of such expres- 
sions, when they reflect, that by the example of many great 
nations — of Spain, of Italy, of Catholic France during the 
seventeenth century, and of Southern Germany even in these 
latest times — it can be proved, with little hazard of contra- 
diction, that a very high^ nny, that the very highest degree 
of intellectua' cultivation is perfectly compatible with the 
belief of thoat; doctrines which the friends of Protestantism 
decry as antiquated prejudices. The admirers of the Refor- 
mation should lay less stress upon its consequences ; for of 
these some were, as themselves admit, altogether unhappy, 
many remote, and assisted by the co-operation of other 
causes. Besides, the effects are perhaps in no case perfectly 
decisive as to the nature of the thing itself The bigoted 
Catholics, on the other hand, who despise the Reformation, 
And abhor it as altogether irreconcileable with their ow^n 



PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHY. 241 

religious opinions, should at least recollect that the later, if 
not the. more immediate, effects of that mighty convulsion, 
have been beneficial and salutary. If we survey the history 
of the world with the feeling of belief, if we are willing to 
recognize in the fortunes and fates of mankind the interpos- 
ing hand of Providence, we shall perceive the same specta- 
cle in every direction. Every where we shall see men pie- 
fented with the happiest opportunities, entreated, as it were, 
to do good, to know the truth, and to reach the eminence of 
true greatness and true excellence ; entreated, however, not 
compelled : for their own co-operation is necessary if they 
would be what fits the destiny of their nature. Rarely, very 
rarely, do men make the proper use of the means they are 
intrusted to employ ; often do they pervert them to the most 
dangerous abuses, and sink even deeper into their ancient er- 
rors. Providence is. if we may so speak, ever struggling 
with the carelessness and the perversity of man; scarcely b}'' 
our own guilt and blindness have we been plunged into 
some great and fearful evil, ere the Benefactor of our nature 
causes unexpected blessings to spring out of the bosom of 
our merited misfortune — warnings and lessons, expressed in 
deeds and events, furnishing us with ever returning«admoni- 
tions to bethink ourselves in earnest, and depart no more 
from the path of truth. 

With the art of poetry Protestantism disclaimed at first 
any connection ; its effects upon both were injurious and de- 
pressing : history and grammar were, in consequence of the 
Reformation, both studied more accurately, and diffused 
more extensively: but Avith philosophy the change of reli- 
gion stood in tbe most intimate connection. But perhaps 
this may be no improper place for giving a short sketch of 
the history of philosophy, both before the Reformation, and 
in the first century after it — I mean, of course, only in so 
far as philosophy exerted a real influence upon the universal 
intellect of the time. 

I have already called your attention to the most remark- 
able of those philosophical geniuses produced by England, 
Italy, and France, in the earlier period previous to the 
twelfth century. Germany too was fruitful in such produc- 
tions, and may boast of an almost uninterrupted series of 
them from the reign of Charlemagne down to the Reforma- 

21 



242 THE PHILOSOPHY OF ARISTOTLE. 

tion, and even after that event. Upon the whole, barren- 
ness is of all reproaches the one least deserved by the mo- 
dern Europeans, even by those of the middle age. If we 
must blame them, it should rather be for the mixture of use- 
less and unprofitable weeds which they have allowed to 
spring up along with their good grain, more particularly 
when any new field has been added to the territories of sci- 
ence. It was thus that along with the mathematical, chem- 
ical, and medical learnmg which they borrowed from the 
Arabians, they admitted from the same quarter the trash of 
astrology and alchemy ; and it was thus that with the know- 
ledge of Aristotle, whom they considered as the perfection of 
all merely human wisdom, there grew up a whole wilderness 
of dialectical hair-splittings and sophistical artifices, of pretty 
nearly the same nature with those which had formerly ir 
fested the Greeks. The best thing in the philosophy of 
Aristotle is the spirit of criticism. But to perceive or com- 
prehend this, required an enlarged and complete knowledge 
of antiquity, such as was in those days quite impossible, and 
as is, even in our own time, extremely rare. The critical 
spirit of Aristotle deserted him in the region of metaphysics 
alone, because there the only two guides which he followed, 
reason and experience, were incapable of leading him aright. 
From an absurd reliance on those metaphysics, which even 
in the works of the great master himself are unintelligible, 
arose that system of philosophy which has received the 
name of the Scholastic. The evil occasioned by this was, 
however, abundantly atoned for by the good effects of the 
study of the practical physics of Aristotle, particularly after 
the time of Albertus Magnus. That the morals of Aristotle 
were an important acquisition to the middle ages I can by 
no me^ans allow; the value of that system to us consists 
chiefly in the illustration it affords of the manners, the do- 
mestic life, and the political institutions of the Greeks. Long 
before the works of Aristotle began to be studied, our ances- 
tors possessed a system of ethics incomparably purer and 
better than his in the Bible ; and their acquaintance with 
him only tempted them to deform that superior system by 
ingrafting upon it a great variety of superfluous niceties and 
classifications. Of the very pernicious effects which the 
Aristotelic system is capable of producing even upon a verv 



EVILS OF THE SYSTEM. 243 

refined and learned age, Spain can supply us with one very 
striking example. In the sixteenth century, when the great 
question of the treatment of the Americans was agitated, the 
minds of many of her best reasoners, and among others of 
one who, in every other respect, was a very excellent man, 
Sapolveda, were so infected with those notions of slavery so 
prevalent among the Greek authors, that, principally by 
their means, measures were adopted by the national coun- 
cils equally repugnant to the principles of natural justice, 
and to the express precepts of Christianity. 

We are not, however, to suppose that all the evils of the 
scholastic system were occasioned entirely by the study of 
Aristotle. At first the opposition of the church to his doc- 
trines was greatly enhanced on account of a crowd of most 
dangerous doctrines an(J opinions which began to come into 
fashion about the same time with those properly belonging 
to his philosophy. This much, nevertheless, must be ad 
mitted, that from the history of the Arabs, no less than from 
that of the middle ages in Europe and of the sixteenth cen- 
tury, there is reason to believe, that the two notions of con- 
ceiving the Deity to be a mere animating principle of the 
universe, and of denying the personal immortality of the 
soul, appear to be, if not necessarily, at least were generally 
connected with a zealous adoption of Aristotelianism. How- 
ever this might have been, the impulse of the age became in 
a short time irresistible, and the dominion of Aristotle could 
no longer be avoided. Christian philosophers, alike desirous 
of supporting the cause of truth, and of extending the limits 
of knowledge, then applied themselves to the study of Aris- 
totle, in the hope of at least turning aside the stream which 
they found it was now impossible to turn back. It is no 
easy matter to form a proper general judgment concerning 
these men who, at least in so far as talents were concerned, 
deserved the very highest estimation. The false and scholas- 
tic turn of their philosophy was the natural consequence of 
the ancient sophistry, (bequeathed as that was, and too in- 
considerately accepted.) of the original defectiveness of th*' 
Aristotlelic metaphysics, and the Arabian commentaries. — 
above all, of that spirit of sect which was the animating prin- 
ciple of the age, and from which (so enticing were its allur'.-- 
nients) even they who were most aware of its existence could 



^ 



244 PHILOSOPHY OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 

seldom keep themselves entirely free. This spirit of sect 
and division .was nourished and inflamed very powerfully 
by the universities, wherein many thousands of striplings 
were yearly educated in the very atmosphere of contention, 
and taught to consider the violence of disputation as the 
highest eminence of human merit. For the best things 
which the philosophers of the middle ages possessed, they 
were indebted either to Christianity, which at all times se- 
cured them from falling into the most dangerous species of 
errors, and to the greatness of their o\^m genius and under- 
standing. But after all, there can be no greater mistake 
than to suppose that what we commonly understand by the 
name of scholastic, that is, the unprofitable waste of intellect 
in empty ideas, and unintelligible formulas, was an error 
peculiar to the middle ages. The evil had already displayed 
itself to excess in the philosophy of the Greeks, and that too 
in the most flourishing age of its cultivation. The same 
thing may be said of modern times ; for not from Germany 
alone, but from France and England also, there could be no 
difficulty in producing abundance of examples, very often in 
the persons of those very men who have declaimed the most 
loudly against the scholastic philosophy and against the 
Stagyrite. It is only requisite that we look to the essence 
of the evil, and that we do not allow ourselves to hold sophis- 
try to be less dangerous, merely because it presents itself in 
a form of greater skill and elegance. 

The prevalence of empty ideas and meaningless words is 
a malady incident to human reason, which never fails to make 
its appearance the moment we desert the path of truth ; in 
my opinion, its most pernicious influences are exerted in ac- 
tive life by means of the distorted artifices of eloquence, and not 
in the retired and formal exercises of the schools. In every 
case, however, the spirit of sect is its inevitable consequence. 

The philosophy of the middle age may be said to have 
been defective, chiefly because it was not thoroughly Chris 
tian ; because the intellect, knowledge, and ideas of mankind, 
were not sufficiently penetrated with the spirit of our reli- 
gion. In ihe philosophy of the modern Europeans, which 
these inherited as a legacy from the ancients, there are two 
^reat masters to be followed, and each is calculated to lead 
tliose ttiat put confidence in his direction into a particular 



STUDY OF MAGIC, 245 

train of errors. On the one hand, there is the defect to which 
I have already alluded, that over-rationalism to which men 
are led by Aristotle and the ancient dialectics: the other is 
the Platonic and visionary system of error into which men 
are very apt to fall, whenever thought and faith overshoot 
those limits which are necessary to the right exertion of 
every human faculty. From this proceeded the second 
species of philosophy common in the middle age, the mystic. 
So long as men confined themselves to the subjects of reli- 
gious feeling and conscience, there is no doubt that this phi- 
losophy was not merely an excusable but a very excellent 
guide. But its defectiveness was very apparent when they 
attempted to apply it to matters of science. Platonism, con- 
nected as it was with a host of oriental mysteries, public and 
concealed, gave the fancy too much room for play, and in 
natural science in particular, the adoption of its tenets was 
almost always coupled wdth a belief in astrology, and a lean- 
ing to the study of magic. This was above all common in 
^Qexmaay^. I may be the more easily excused for saying so, 
since, in our own days, there have occurred many symptoms 
of a tendency to recur to these errors. As in former times, 
dIous men began the histories of their lives with a prayer to 
God, or a religious sentiment or aspiration, so it has once 
more come in fashion to commence memoirs with a scheme 
of nativity, or some astrological conjecture.* The specula- 
tions of natural philosophers may certainly seJect, without 
offence, any subjects which promise either knowledge or 
amusement to those that pursue them. I am not disposed to 
throw entire ridicule even upon the study of secret influences, 
when it is kept in its proper place. But the application of 
such pursuits to the business of active life, and the belief that 
human destinies can in any degree be regulated by the posi- 
tion of the stars, are absurdities which deserve to be treated 
with something more severe than ridicule itself The per- 
nicious elTect of a firm belief m the potency of thpse mysteri 
ous influences, the total ruin of all moral and religious prin 
ciple which such a belief brings along with it, has already 
been depicted with terrible vigour by the tragic pencil of 
Sdiilier in his Wallenstein. Easy as is the abuse, and dan- 

* Schlegel alludes to the first paragraph of Goethe's Life. 
21* 



246 THE OCCULT SCIENCES. 

gerous the partaking of such things, they have been dealt 
in by neither few nor inconsiderable persons. An AJ[bej:liia_ 
J^agniiSj a mathematician of the fifteenth century, such as 
^Nicolas of Cusa, a pious bishop, such as Trithemius,_. the 
first of all orientalists, Reuchlin himself, confessed, without 
scruple, their hankering after the possession of secrets which 
can never be revealed to man. It would be as unjust as fool- 
ish to deny the merits of these great men, to call in question 
their genius, their knowledge, or their piety, on account of 
their addiction to follies which, in our own day, we have 
seen so nearly revived. But all the dabblers in the occult 
sciences were not men of this kind ; the facility with which 
such pursuits could be associated with the most profligate 
schemes of quackery and charlatanery is too apparent in the 
history of the tim.es. It may be sufficient for my purpose to 
mention the name of Agrippa. Even Paracelsus himself 
was not free from some such errors. But Germany pos- 
sessed, in these early days, many mystic philosophers, who 
devoted themselves entirely to the feelings of religion. No 
modern language was so soon applied to the purposes of the 
higher philosophy and to spiritual subjects as ours. 

There were, from the thirteenth century, down to the time 
of the Reformation, very many writers of this kind both in 
High and Lower Dutch. They were connected with each 
other, and formed a sort of school, and called themselves the 
^^smwants of wisdom, or the. heavenly Sophia, understanding 
by this name that divine and sublime truth which was the 
object of their ambition, and to their love of which they wil- 
(ingly sacrificed their lives. I shall, out of a great number, 
mention only one whose works were of great importance in 
the formation of our language. This is the preacher, or the 
philosopher, .Tauler, who received, long after the Reforma- 
tion, the emulous .praises both of Catholics and ProtestantSj 
but who has at last yielded to the common destiny of ob- 
livion. The scholars of Alsace, w^ho, although their coun- 
try has long been politically annexed to France, still shew, 
by the diligence and depth of their inquiries into our history 
and our language, that they are determined by no means to 
part with their character of Germans, have had the merit, in 
our own time, of recalling the public^ attention to this forgot- 
ten sage^. and the very high impo rtance o f his works, at least 



I 



MODERN GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 24' 

60 far as language is jjoncerned. If we compare his writing5 
with those upbniimilar subjects, composed in Luther's time, 
or even a century later, we shall find their superiority as 
manifest as is that of the harmonious love-poems of the thir- 
teenth century, and the Niebelunged-lied over the rude verses 
of the sixteenth century. In this respect also the elder time 
was by no means the more rude, but as its spirit was better, 
so its language also was purer than that of the age wliich 
came after. 

When critics reproach our nation with a tendency to mys- 
ticism, they are probably not aware how old the failing is. 
It would be easy to shew that we have been equally guilty 
of it ever since the time of Charlemagne. But whether the 
reproach be really well founded, or whether that w^hich is 
the subject of it be not rather deserving of praf:;e than ot 
blame, I shall not take upon me at the present lime to de- 
cide. 

In the philosophy of the middle age, as in that of the more 
modern times, the strong and distinct influence of national 
character is abundantly visible. In the older, exactly as in 
the later times, JVanGe.and England_were distinguished for 
the production of ^reat thinkers, great doubters, and great 
sophists. The Italians were chiefly remarkable for their 
strict adherence to the truths of our religion; but they also, 
like the Qerrnans, had a propensity to the hig-her, the more 
spiritual, and the more mystical kind of philosophy. The 
leaning to Platonism may be traced even in their poets. In 
one word, that philosophy of experience and reason, Avhose 
greatest master among the ancients was Aristotle, had the 
greatest number of followers during the middle ages, as well 
as more lately, in France and England. In this respect 
these two nations, in spite of their political rivalry, coincide 
at bottom in their vievvs and opinions, much more closely 
than at first sight might be imagined. A propensity to the 
other and more Platonic species of philosophy has, on the 
other hand, distinguished both the Italians and the Germans, 
the one the most remarkable nation for love of art, and the 
other for depth of feeling; insomuch, that widely dilferenr 
as they are in origin, language, and manners, they have at 
all times been connected together by a certain sympathy and 
community of attachments. 



LECTURE XL 



aENERAL REMARKS ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE TIMES IMMEDIATIELr PRE- 
CEDING AND FOLLOWING THE REFORMATION POETRY OF THE CATHO 

Lie NATIONS, THE SPANIARDS, THE PORTUGUESE, AND THE ITALIANS— 
GARCILASO, ERCILLA, CAMOENS, TASSO, GUARINI, MARINO, AND CER 
VANTES. 



The state of universal thought, and the progress of phi- 
losophy, immediately before the Reformation, and in the first 
century after it, formed the last subjects of our attention. The 
real result of our inquiries may be comprised in the follow- 
ing general remarks : — 

Throughout the whole of Europe, before the restoration 
of ancient learning and the reformation in religion, that empty 
logical system of words, which went by the name of Aris- 
totle, was adopted almost universally by the learned ; and, 
without any exception whatever, by all the public semina- 
ries of instruction. In Germany, however, and afterwards 
in Italy, there sprung up, during the fifteenth century, by 
the side of this dead philosophy of words, another and a 
higher species of philosophy, which coincided in part with 
the system of Plato, and in part with that of the Orientals. 
In particular things there is no doubt that this new system 
led the way to error ; but upon the whole, at least its prin- 
ciples were just, and, at all events, it was both richer in im- 
port and more profound in its views than the other. We 
may see the proof of its superiority even in the manner 
wherein it was studied, and in the persons of those by whom , 
it was adopted. The seat of its sway was not in the uni- 
versities and in the schools — its adherents formed, properly 
speaking, no sect ; it deserved, in fact, the name of philoso- 
phy, according to the oldest signification of the word — a love 
of wiidom, sought and diffused for its own sake alone, by 
men who felt within them the irresistible vocation to the pur 



THE ARISTOTELIC PHILOSOPHY. 249 

suit of truth. The greatest naturalists and mathematicians, 
the most profound masters of Greek learning, and the best 
Orientalists of the fifteenth century, both in Germany and 
Italy, belonged to the followers of this new system. The 
renewed acquaintance with the literature of Greece had, on 
the whole, no other effect upon this mystical and more Pla- 
tonic mode of philosophizing, but that of affording to it new 
materials and new nourishment out of the innumerable trea- 
sures and monuments of ancient wisdom ; new means of en- 
richment, and new instruments of bolder development. These 
advantages were, in some measure, counterbalanced by the 
simultaneous introduction of many new errors, or rather the 
revival of the forgotten dreams of New Platonism and the 
Orientals. By the restoration of ancient literature, the then 
prevalent species of philosophy gained additional extent ol 
knowledge, but an influx of visionary opinions accompanied 
the change, and, upon the whole, the power which was re- 
ceived was capable of being turned to evil as well as to 
good. 

On the other species of philosophy, the Aristotelic, the 
effect was still greater. As yet this system had never been 
studied or comprehended in its purity, but always mingled 
with a variety of Platonic notions, and in some measure re- 
duced to a sort of subjection to the doctrines of Christianity. 
But now the opinions of Aristotle began to be sought for in 
the original language, and to be viewed in connection with 
the whole system of Grecian cultivation ; and the change 
could not fail to be extremely favourable, at least in regard 
to form. The external part of the scholastic philosophy was 
at all events removed, and that which remained learned to 
clothe itself in a form not so entirely unworthy of the clas- 
sical elegance of antiquity and the critical acuteness of the 
Stagyrite. But the better and the deeper that the spirit ot 
the ancient philosophy was comprehended, the more fre- 
quently did it happen that individual students were betrayed 
into the adoption of such consequences of their system as art 
irreconcilealDle with religion and morality : as, for e.vample, 
the dogma of establishing as first cause, in the room of God, 
a mere principle of universal existence, and the other equally 
dangerous one, of denying the personal immortality of the 
soul. These errors were abundantly common among the 



250 OF THE FIFTEENTH rEXTUKV. 

followers of Aristotle, particularly in Italy, during the 
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The attempts to renew 
some of the other systems of ancient philosophy, such as the 
Stoic, which were made about the same time, were produc- 
tive of much less effect upon the general progress of philo- 
sophy. Plato and Aristotle have so distinctly marked out 
the two great paths of human thought and science, that they 
have remained, and always must remain, the master-guides 
of all succeeding generations. The other systems of anti- 
:juity are valuable, for the most part, only because they re- 
semble one or other of these : they are slight deviations and 
by-paths, which soon return again into the main roads. It 
was for this reason that the plans for renewing Stoicism, or 
any other of the lesser S3rstems, had very inconsiderable suc- 
cess, and produced indeed very little effect of any kind, ex- 
cept that they could not fail to stimulate thought, and in- 
crease yet more the general ferment of opinions. Of all 
these systems, the worst alone, that of Epicurus and of pure 
materialism, which traces the origin of every thing to the 
collision of corporeal atoms, began to meet with some suc- 
cess in the seventeenth century, and in the eighteenth m.ade 
such progress as might entitle its adherents to say that they 
belonged to a sect. 

In common language we often hear the epoch of the fif- 
teenth and sixteenth centuries called a restoration or a second 
birth of the sciences. A restoration it undoubtedly was, at 
least in respect of that renewed acquaintance with Greek 
literature and antiquity, by means of which, if the historical 
knowledge of these matters was not indeed rendered perfect, 
it received at least incalculable improvement. But I can by 
no means approve of calling it a second birth of the human 
intellect and of the sciences, for I should consider that name 
as due, not to such a change as amounts only to an increase 
of wealth, and is produced by any external circumstances, 
but to one which consists of an awakening out of previous 
death, and breaks out from the roused energies of internal 
life. Such an inward, a living, and a total change upon 
philosophy as this; was not even produced by the Reforma- 
tion ; for after it, as before, the Aristotelic and Platonic sys- 
tems stiL continued to be the two main divisions of all sci- 
ence Yet the Reformation exerted a mighty influence upon 



LUTHER AND MELANCTHON. 25 I 

the future progress, the development, and the extension of 
both systems. With those Platonic-Oriental doctrines which 
were before him, and during his lifetime, so prevalent in 
Germany, the acquaintance of Luther himself seems to have 
been extremely slight; such as it was, it helped him to a 
more cordial hatred of the scholastic system and of Aris- 
totle, of whom he used to speak with great cont-^mpt as " a 
dead heathen." Nevertheless, the best friend and follower 
of Luther, „Me]an.cthon, was of a very different way of think- 
ing ; it was indeed chiefly by his means that the authority 
of the improved._scholastic system, and of Aristotle, was re- 
established in its supremacy. The cause of this was as 
follows : — That higher and more spiritual philosophy, 
which, wherever it loses sight of truth, is the most effectual 
means of introducing all sorts of visionary error, had this 
eflfect to a very remarkable extent in Germany during the 
anarchical times of the Reformation. An universal mistrust 
of it was the consequence. K The Aristotelic philosophy re- 
gained its predominant influence over both parties, in Spain 
as well as in Germany, for this ancient system of forms, 
the less spirit it had, the more easily was it bent and accom- 
modated to the purposes of either sect, and the dogmas of 
either creed. Although, however, this system was now 
united with a somewhat superior knowledge of nature, and 
with better skill in language and antiquity, the evils of 
which it had formerly been productive still adhered to it ; 
it continued to be, after all, a logical word-system, and near 
at hand as its extinction appeared to be even during the fif- 
teenth century, the effects of this favourable moment were 
now sufficient to secure the protraction of its existence m 
every cultivated country of Europe down to the end of the 
^seventeenth century. In Italy the bolder species of philoso- 
phy, which there assumed, it must be allowed, the appear- 
ance of the most dangerous and violent opposition, was now 
oppressed, and many most distinguished talents fell a sacri- 
fice to the struggle which ensued. In Germany and Eng- 
land the higher philosophy was not, it is true, altogether 
oppressed, but it certainly was discouraged, and even perse- 
cuted, and became, at all events, entirely excluded from the 
sphere of the learned. With so much the greater zeal was 
It cultivated by individuals of the lower orders of society, 



252 PHILOSOPHERS UNLEARNED. 

and extended in other quarters by the ministration of secret 
associations. In either of these ways it could not fail to be 
corrupted, and degraded, and kept back from that universal 
development, and effectual influence to which it might other- 
wise have attained. It is true, indeed, that the gifts of na- 
ture and God are open to all ; the spirit of deep reflection, 
and of the highest science, is by no means confined to the 
polished classes of society, and is a thmg entirely uncon- 
nected with what is called erudition. Many of the most dis- 
tinguished of the Greek philosophers were men of little eru- 
dition, and destitute of any advantage over other men than 
what they gained by their power of thought ; the wisest of 
them all, Socrates, was no scholar, and never wished to be- 
come one. The first preachers of Christianity were men 
taken from the vulgar of the people, and yet we see that 
they have no fear to treat subjects of the most mysterious 
depth in a manner the most easy and natural. Of such 
men there has been, through all ages, a successive series. 
There often lies, in the strong and undissipated spirit of the 
people, an astonishing energy both of moral and of intellec- 
tual strength. The founders of sects and of states, the aven- 
gers of their country, and the revivers of religion, have often 
been men of the julgar, called and animated to their great 
works by the voice of internal inspiration. The greatest 
benefits have been conferred upon mankind not by writings 
but by active deeds. If we look to the spirit of invention 
and the gift of language, and compaie^philosophy with poe- 
Jry, we shall find that even in these respects g^enius is by no 
means the privileged possession of the learned. We know 
that it has been possible for a Shakespeare, a man whose 
learning seems to have been chiefly confined to popular 
poetry, to reach a height and depth of representation which 
the most skilful and erudite poets have in vain endeavoured 
to attain ; I see no reason why it should appear to us a thing 
more marvellous that a man of the people in Germany 
should have penetrated into those depths of metaphysical in- 
quiry, ard excited an inventive genius on those secret depart- 
ments of philosophy, which were entirely out of the reach 
of the erudite doctors of the time ; need I add the name ot 
^3[acob Bohme, the Teutonic philosopher, as he has been 
'•alledj a name which is to the" enlightened a stumbline^-block. 



THE TEUTONIC PHILOSOPHY. 253 

and to the learned foolishness ; a man who, in spite of all 
his disadvantages, had many followers, not in Germany 
alone, but even in other countries, also in Holland and Eng- 
Jand. — among others in this last country, the too celebrated and 
unfortunate King.Charles. > I have already more than once 
expressed my conviction that the very existence of a po(^iry 
of the vulgar is in itself a sufficient evidence of the dechne 
and corruption of true poetry; for that is a possession which 
should not belong peculiarly either to the common people 
01 to the learned, but equally to all the members of which 
the national body is composed. If a popular poetry cannot 
escape betraying some symptoms of this unnatural state, 
some traces of the corruption and barbarism which are in- 
separable from this unfortunate separation : how much more 
must all this be the case with a popular philosophy — a term 
w^hich seems to involve in it the very necessity of a contra- 
diction ? However much the genius of individuals may tri- 
umph over the circumstances of their situation, it is impos- 
sible that philosophy can ever acquire, in their hands, the 
place which is due to her. This is not the time to depict 
and explain more fully the very remarkable system of this 
Teutonic philosophy. This much, how^ever, I may remark, 
that although it bears very distinctly the traces of having 
been the creation of one inventive spirit, it is by no means 
destitute of points of coincidence w^ith those other forms of 
secret philosophy, the influence of which was at that time 
ever on the increase. Nor is it at all astonishing that this 
should have been so, for at that period the unconquerable 
thirst after truth was every where seeking for itself new and 
more mysterious paths, and removed as far as possible from 
the old tracts of verbal science and erudition ; paths which 
led to fountains of sublime discovery, of lofty conception, 
but, we must also admit, not unfrequently, of wild dreams 
and unprofitable error. After the^t once visible and invisi- 
ble bond of the church were dissolved in certain countries 
of Europe, another altogether invisible system of connection 
began to occupy its place. There are degrees in the know- 
ledge of truth, there are higher and lower steps ; the higher 
are scarcely ever attainable to the yet struggling nature of 
man. I will confess that, according to the opinion of Les- 
fiingj there are, among the component parts of human know- 
^ 22 



254 THE PLATONIC PHILOSOPHY. 

iedge, some which are in their very nature secret ; that is, 
vvliich are of such a sort that even such as have them in 
their possession can never find resolution to reveal them. 
The publication appears always ill-timed ; and, moreover, 
the means of publication are almost perpetually a wanting. 
The existence of such difficulties as these is proA'ed by his- 
tory to have been common to every age of the world ; it is 
as impossible to prevent such species of knowledge as those 
of which I speak from being propagated in secret, as it is to 
repder them common to all the world. However much of 
truth the secret system may contain, the opposition between 
it, and the open structure of truth, is at all times unfortunate. 
Even the separation in the visible church at the era of the 
Reformation, cannot fail to be considered, by all good men, 
as a great misfortune, for it was a rupture in the family of 
the Christian people, and, as it were, a tearing asunder of 
the great body of our species. The existence of an invisible 
church, in opposition to the visible, must have at that time 
appeared a yet more alarming occurrence; it must have 
been viewed as a sort of separation between soul and body, 
a sure mark of dissolution. But the evil effects which might 
have been expected have not been realized, the soul and 
body of mankind are not yet separated, and the unity of 
truth still remains. He who despises the rock upon which 
truth stands, will never be able to reach the place of her 
temple. 

That spiritual, Platonic, and wiental mode of philoso- 
phizing which had been openly adopted by the great men 
of Italy and Germany in the fifteenth century, was, after 
the Reformation, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, 
either altogether suppressed, or left to the vulgar and to in- 
dividual visionaries, or propagated in secret, and with great 
alterations and corruptions. Among the learned men, the 
old logical word system, which went so absurdly by the 
name of Aristotle,. retained its undisputed sway, till almost 
two hundred^years later; towards the end of the seTenteenth 
^century, it began to be pressed out of view by new sects and 
systems, the consideration of whose merits maust belong to an 
after period: for their operation has continued down to our 
own day, and their full development was the work of the 
eighteenth century. 



THE POETRY OF CATHOLIC COUNTRIES. 255 

As the different .nations of Europe became now again 
more separated from each other, a corresponding and equally 
unfortunate division took place among the different sciences 
<ind studies. The events of the period were hurtful, atove 
all, to the study of antiquity, and prevented it from hearing 
any right fruit, or having any active influence upon life. 
The first great restorers of erudition were philosophers, met 
whose knowledge of the middle ages, and of their own time, 
was equal to their knowledge of antiquity, who united orien- 
tal learning with that of the Greeks and the Romans. They 
viewed every thing in its proper place ; they took a compre- 
hensive survey of things, and judged of them by their rela- 
tion to the history of the world, and by the real powers which 
they possessed. But after the miserable period of separation, 
when philosophy was persecuted, suppressed, or corrupted, 
'and the middle age forgotten, the attention of the learned, 
who had no longer almost any connection with their own 
world or nation, was entirely restricted to the antiquity of 
the Greeks and Romans, which they admired without hav- 
ing any proper feeling for the true beauties of its productions. 
Among poets and artists alone did any lively perception of 
this exist ; the learned, who scarcely ever united any philoso- 
phy with their classical erudition, were satisfied with a mere 
superstitious worship of the languages. The true and en- 
lightened knowledge of the spirit of antiquity did not appear 
till the eighteenth century. 

Even in regard to art and poetry, we must always regard 
it as unlucky that they should spring up without any con- 
nection with philosophy, that the cultivation of the imagina- 
tion should be separated from that of the understanding, and 
that the former of these should not unfrequently be placed in 
exact opposition to the latter. In these stormy days, how- 
ever, in the ferment and revolutions of which philosophy and 
history were so much involved, art and poetry, it must be 
allowed, formed almost the sole asylum wherein feeling and 
intellect had leisure to unfold themselves in the natural calm- 
ness of their oeautv 

The poetry of the Catholic countries, the Spanish, the 
Italian, and the Portuguese, were in that age so much parts 
of one whole, that I think they should all be considered to- 
gether. The Spaniards, as we have alreadv seen, possessed 



256 POETRY AND ROMANCES OF SPAIN. 

very early their national poem of theX^Jd; their love, poetrj 
continued to flourish in the fifteenth century, later than that 
of any other nation. The general spirit of chivalry, and of 
the poetry connected with it, was preserved here much longer 
than in any other country of Europe. Their Chivalric Ro- ' 
mances have a tone of feeling almost peculiar to themselves, 
and are distinguished (above all, the oldest and best of them, 
ihe Amadis) by a more polished and beautiful mode of writ- 
ing than is elsewhere to be found, and by a prevailing fond- 
ness for tender and idyllic representations. Here too, then, 
in the poetry of chivalry, and particularly in that of the 
Spaniards and the Germans, we find new confirmation of 
what I noticed in an early part of these lectures — the par- 
tiality of all heroic nations and warlike peoples to that 
which is soft and tender in poetical composition. Along 
with the Chivalric Romances there grew up among the 
Spaniards and Portuguese the kindred species of the JPasr 
Joral Romance. The poetry of Spain, particularly her love 
poetry, was cultivated with great success in the fifteenth cen- 
tury, by two men whose birth, rank, and influence, were of 
the first order, — Villena and Santillana. In general, ever 
since its first commencement, the poetry of Spain has always 
been more cultivated by nobles and knights than by mere lite- 
rati and authors. I know of no nation which numbers among 
its poets so many that have borne arms in the cause of theii 
country. Tliat poetry which we call Spanish, should rather, 
m its oldest period, be denominated Castilian; for at first it 
was peculiar to that province alone ; and many other coun- 
tries of the Spanish peninsula cultivated poetry in a manner 
of their own quite different from that of the Castilians. In 
Catalonia there flourished a species of poetry, which, in re- 
spect to language, bore the greatest resemblance to theJPror— 
^vencial. The last and most celebrated of its productions was 
consecrated to the melancholy fate of Charles of Vian£, the 
last of the royal family, who seems to have been beloved by 
the Catalonians as their native Prince, and the elder brother, 
by the first marriage, of that Ferdinand who afterwards 
ruled over Castile also under the name of The Catholic, and 
came on this account to be regarded somewhat as a stranger 
by the inhabitants of Arragon. That province was from 
this time more and more subjected and despised; and the 



CHARACTERISTICS OF SPANISH POETRY. 257 

peculiar poetry shared the fate of the independence of the 
country where it had flourished ; by degrees, as the whole 
political importance came to centre in Castile, so also were 
all those ornaments of poetry swallowed up in the Castilian 
poetry, which had before been scattered throughout the dif 
ferent provinces of that poetical land. Of all the inhabitants 
of the beautiful peninsula, the Portuguese alone, as they con- 
tinued to be a peculiar nation, preserved a peculiar language 
and poetry of their own ; yet their old strictness of connec- 
tion with Castile was still preserved: many Portuguese com- 
posed m the Castilian dialect, and much of what commonly 
passes for Castilian is, in reality, by origin Portuguese. The 
poetry of the two nations is indeed so intimately connected, 
that it is far from easy to adjust their respective claims to the 
merit of invention. The Arabs contributed much to enrich 
and adorn the poetry of the country which they invaded. It 
is true, the old Castilian poems are quite free from any such 
Arabian influence or oriental tone ; they are, on the con- 
trary, distinguished by a jsti'ength and simplicity both of lan- 
guage and of feeling, which bear the sure marks of a very 
different origin. The more distinct is the absence of all 
Arabic ornament in the old Castilian poetry, the more clearly 
do we perceive its presence in the new. The separation oc- 
casioned by differences of religion and perpetual hostilities, 
may sufficiently account for the want of Arabian ornaments 
in the poetry of the remoter period. But when Isabella and 
Ferdinand the Catholic, (I name Isabella first because the 
generous principle was peculiarly hers.) when they with 
their knights conquered G.ranada, and after seven long cen- 
turies rendered Spain once more entirely free fiom the foreign 
yoke ; during that last war between Moors and Spaniards, 
the fall of the Arabic kingdom of Granada was hastened by 
internal dissentions and the discord of its nobles. At the 
head of two contending parties were placed the two great 
families ol the Bencerrajas and the Zegris. The first em- 
braced Christianity, and became Spaniards ; the second re- 
treated, after the final conquest of the capital, to Africa. 
There yet exist many romances which celebrated the fame 
and achievements of the Bencerrajas, their blood}^ feuds with 
the Zegris, and the last struggles of the Granadian Arabs. 
Proud songs of the most glowing love, and the wildest 
22* 



258 SPANISH NATIONAL LITERATURE. 

passion for glory ; mutilated heroic fragments of the most 
tender feeling; simple in their language, but ynt by no 
means devoid of the eastern five] these Granadian produc- 
tions, consecrated to the glory of particular families and 
tribes, are in their tone and import entirely Saracen, and re- 
semble in most things, so far as we can judge, the original 
poetry of the Arabian people. Here, in these romances, the 
most beautiful, according to my judgment, possessed either 
by the Spanish, or by any other modern people, the Arabian 
spirit and oriental colouring can no longer be mistaken; 
they have tinged with their own hue the whole of the suc- 
ceeding poetry of Spain. The garden of Spanish poetry, its 
old Castilian soil being planted with the flowers of Portu- 
guese invention and Provencial elegance, and now also 
cherished by the bright glow of Arabic ardour, becseie 
every day more beautiful and rich. Under Charles Y, who 
crowned Ariosto as the first poet of Italy, the more artificial 
_pgetry_of the Italians was introduced into Spain by Garcilaso 
and Bpscan,^ who retained, however, a due regard for the 
nature of the old language and poetry, and were far from 
wishing to sacrifice these to their admiration for their foreign 
models. To these the whole nation was so much attached, 
that the introduction of the Italian style met at first with 
great opposition, although afterwards it came to produce 
very favourable effects. No other poetry is composed of so 
many different elements as the Spanish ; but these elements 
were neither unlike nor irreconcileable ; they were all dif- 
ferent tones of fancy and feeling whose union formed the per- 
fection of harmony, and has left the Spanish poetry the 
matchless wonder of romantic writing. This poetry is not 
only rich; itjs by itself, both in its import and spirit, and in 
every respect is in perfect unison with the character and feel 
ing of the nation. 

Ever since that glorious period under Ferdinand the 
Catho ic and Charles V. no literature has preserved a char- 
acter of such pure nationality as that of the Spaniards. If 
we consider the works of literature by the principles of anj 
jHiiversal theory of art, there is no end to the controversy 
which may arise with regard to the merits and defects, eithei 
of an individual book, or of a whole body of literature ; the 
great danger is, that we may perhaps, in the course of our 



SUPERIORITY OF SPANISH LITERATURE. 259 

controversies, lose sight altogether of our o^\ti feelings, and 
forget the first pare impression which was made upon us. 
But there is another point from which literature can be 
much more easily contemplated, and much more securely 
judged; I mean the moral. point of view, which commands 
every thing, from which alone we can discover whether a 
literature' be throughout national, and in harmony with the 
national weal and the national spirit. If we adopt this mode 
of deciding, every thing, I have little doubt, will be found 
in favour of the Spaniards. We may look at the literature 
of Italy ; i'nd. so far as form and style are concerned, we 
may have no difficulty in allowing its superiority over the 
Spanish ; but if we regard national spirit and influence, how 
clear and decided is its inferiority. Some of the ,first.Jtalian 
poets seem to have been destitute of all regard for their 
country, devoid of the least spark of national feeling, — such 
were Boccaccio, Ariosto, Guarini. In others, as, for in- 
stance, in J^etrarch, we can perceive indeed some, faint echo 
of national feeh'ng, but this almost always ill directed and 
absurd; as in his case, the admiration of Rienzi, and the 
plans for re-establishing the Roman republic, render it abun- 
dantly manifest. The tAyo most national of the great Italian 
writers are ^nte and Machiavelli ^ but the first is far less 
a patriot _than a Ghibelline, and the second has spent his 
whole genius in defending opinions and principles, the adop- 
tion of which strikes at the root of every thing like public 
virtue^ 

In this point of view the literature and poetry of Spain 
are most admirable. Every part of them is penetrated with 
the noblest natural feeling ; strong, moral, and deeply reli- 
gious, even when the immediate subject of writing is neither 
morality nor religion. There is nothing^^¥?Sn degrade 
thought, corrupt feeling, or estrange virtue. Every w^here 
there breathes the same spirit of honour, principle, and faith. 
1 have already alluded to the great number of excellent his- 
torical writers, and to the early developed and long pre- 
served manly eloquence of Spain. Their poets are, in like 
manner, true Spaniards. We may almost say that the only 
dijSerences among them are those of language and expres- 
sion ; the mode of thinking which prevails among all these 
writers is one and the same, the Spanish. Thi& higt na- 



260 OF GARCILASO, AS A POET. 

tional value has but too often been overlooked by critics ; 
the v/orks of the Spaniards have been absurdly judged by 
the rules of the ancients or of the Italians — or what is still 
worse, by the narrow decisions of the French taste. In 
regard to national value, of all modern literatures, the first 
place belongs to the Spanish, the second to the English. I 
do not mean to say that the latter of these is inferior in any 
degree to the former; but it has had to contend with a 
greater variety of anti-national elements, and it has gone 
through a greater number of changes and temporary declen- 
sions from the right path. The national unity of the Eng- 
lish literature has been preserved in spite of all these obsta- 
cles, but rather as if in consequence of some tacit law, than 
as if from the mere feeling and tendency of its character. I 
am far from asserting that this is the only point of view from 
which literature ought to be surveyed. I shall have occa- 
sion in the sequel to show that many literatures derive the 
greater part of their interest from elements of a very different, 
description. 
^ Garcilaso, and some other poets of the time of Charles 
V. are usually held up by the Spanish critics as models of 
beautiful language and perfect taste. There is no doubt 
that they are models of composition worthy of great atten- 
tion ; above all, when we compare them with the artificial 
and corrupted style of the poets who succeeded them. But 
I can never believe that either Garcilaso, or any one of his 
contem.poraries, has reached the same point of perfection in 
poetical language which Virgil did among the Romans, or 
Racine among the French. Their poems are rather happy 
effusions of the feeling of love, than great classical works. 
A lyrical and idyllic poet may show the happy condition of 
language and poetry in his country, but he can never bring 
either to their full perfection ; for lyrical poems are of too 
narrow limits and too confined import for this. It is only 
an epic or a dramatic poet who can ever become an univer- 
sal and abiding standard for the art and language of his na- 
tion. The life of the Spanish people was then so chivalric 
and rich, their wars in Europe so great a^id glorious, and 
their adventures on the sea and in the new world so wonaer- 
ful and so gratifying to the imagination, that the invented 
marvellous of the old romances appeared dull and common- 



THE CID, ITS CHARACTERISTICS. 261 

place when contrasted with these realities. About this time 
m other countries, the fashion commenced of turning the 
subjects of the old chivalric romances into epic poems. In 
Spain things took a difTerent turn, and poetry became daily 
more and more histoiical in its themes. Such at least is Xha 
case with the most celebrated epic of the Spaniards, the 
A.iaiicana of Ercilla, wherein th^wars of the Spanish ad- 
venturers with a free and bra^ve American nation are cele- 
brated or narrated. The appearance of the foreign countiy, 
and its savage inhabitants, wilderness, and natural curiosi- 
ties, campaigns and combats, are all depicted ^vith such 
truth and vivacity, that we are kept for ever in mind that the 
poet was an- eye-witness of all that he describes. This first 
of Spanish epics abounds in individual passages of great 
poetical power and beauty; but as a whole, it is certainly 
rather a versified book of travels and history of war, than 
^^pgem. The heroic poem should at all times unite histo- 
rical truth and dignity w4th the free play of fancy in the 
regions of the marvellous; it matters little whether the 
ground-work be historical or fictitious. In my opinion the 
first of all the national heroic poems which the Spaniards 
possess is unquestionably the jQi^ The _Portiigu.ese poet 
^Camoens was in these respects far more fortunate than Er- 
cilla! As the Avildernesses of America then belonged to 
Spain, so the riches of India fell to the share of this nation ; 
a circumstance infinitely more happy for the purposes of the 
poet. In him, too, we feel that the poet was also a warrior, 
a mariner, an adventurer, and a circumnavigator. He be- 
gins, indeed, with the most violent praise of truth, and boasts 
that he intends to beat Ariosto by means of real incidents, 
far surpassing in splendour of marvellousness the fictitious 
achievements of Orlando and Ruggiero. At its commence- 
ment his poem is written in strict imitation of the Virgilian 
model, a constant adherence to which was indeed the chief 
fault of all the epic poets of that age. But Camoens, like 
his own Gama, soon leaves the servile coast-sailing of his 
predecessors, ventures into the wide expanse of ocean, and 
makes his triumphant progress through rich and und]S 
covered lands. As the mariner in the midst of the troubles 
and tempests of the sea, perceives, by the spicy gales, that 
he IS approaching to his Indian haven, so over the later can- 



5«J62 the genius of tasso. 

tos of the Lusiad there is diffused the rich air and the re- 
splendent sun of the oriental skies. The language is indeed 
simple and the purpose serious ; nevertheless, in colouring 
and fulness of fancy, Camoens here surpasses even Ariosto, 
whose garland he so venturously aspired to tear aAvay. But 
Camoens does not confine himself to Gama and the dis- 
covery of India, nor even to the sway and achievements of 
the Portuguese of his day; whatever of chivalrous, great, 
beautiful, or noble, could be gathered from the traditions of 
his country has been inv^eaved and embodied into the web 
of his poem. It embraces the whole poetry of his nation ; 
among all the heroic poets either of ancient or of modern 
times there has never, since Hpmer^ .been any one so in- 
tensely national, or so loved _^nd honoured by his country- 
men, as Camoens. It seems as if the national feelings of 
the Portuguese, excluded from every other subject of medi- 
tation by the degraded condition of their empire, had centre a 
and reposed themselves in the person of this poet, con- 
sidered by them, and worthy of being considered by us. as 
worthy of supplymg the place of a whole troop of poets, and 
as being in himself a complete literature to his country. The 
most interesting parts of the poem, are those passages at the 
beo-innino;- and the close, wherein Camoens addresses him- 
self to. the young monarch Sebastian, the same ^vho was 
destined to involve in the miseries of his destinies the whole 
fortunes of his people, with love and animating admiration, 
and yet with some portion of seriousness and warning as it 
might be the privilege of a grey-haired veteran, such as he 
was, to address Lis king. 

Somewhat Jater . than Camoens appeared TassOj^ a poet 
nearer to ourselves by his language, and, in part also, by his 
subject, which, by the way, is chosen with the utmost pos- 
sible felicity, for the Crusades unite, in a manner elsewhere 
unequalled, the whole fulness of the chivalrous and the mar- 
vellous, with the seriousness of historical truth. His sub- 
ject was still more adapted for his own time than it is for 
ours ; for the old contest between Christendom and the pow- 
ers of Mahomet had not yet terminated. Even in the da^^s 
of Charles V. the heroes and warriors of Spain still flat- 
tered themselves with the hope of regaining the lost con- 
quests of Godfrey in the Holy Land; a thmg which, after 



CHARACTERISTICS OF HIS STYLE. 26' 

all. might well have seemed quite possible, after the naval 
power of Spain had acquired the undisputed superiority in 
the Mediterranean, and particularly after limits had fairly 
been set to the tremendous power of the Turkish Emperoi 
by land. An inspiration not only poetical but patriotic vras 
derived from the cause of Christendom by this poet, in whom 
love of glory and piety of feeling were equally predominant. 
But he has by no means equalled the greatness of his sub- 
ject ; on the contrar3rj he has made so little use of its riches, 
that he may be said to have spent only the superfluities ol 
its treasure. He, too, was in some degree confined by the 
Virgilian form, from which he has borrowed, with no great 
success, a few pieces of what is commonly called the epic 
machinery. Yet Camoens was not prevented by the same 
sort of belief in regard to the proper form of an epic, from 
interweaving into his poem every thing that could adorn a 
national heroic poem, and from doing entire justice to the 
materials of %vhich he had made choice. But in truth, even 
had his ideas of epic art been more just. I doubt whether 
Tasso could ever have attained the same success. He be- 
longs, upon the whole, rather to the class of poets who re- 
present themselves and their own exquisite feelings, than oi 
those who can create in their strength of imagination another 
world, and lose individual feelings in the luxury of theii 
own inventions. The most beautifu] .parts of his poem are 
episo des w hich might have been introduced with equal pro 
piTeFy into any other epic, and have no strict connection witk 
the subject of the Jerusalem. The magic of Armida, the 
beauty of Clorinda, and the love of Erminia, — these passa- 
ges, and such as these, are the things that bind us to Tasso ; 
forms of which our German poet has made Tasso himself 
to say : — 

They are not shadows that produce a dream, 
I know they are eternal, for they are.* 

In Tasso's lyrical^ poems there is a glow of passion, and 
an inspiration of unfortunate love, which delight us even 
more than the little pastoral of Aminta^ although that too is 
throughout impregnated with tEeleeling of love. We feel in 

* Goethe. 



264 DANTE AND TASSO COMPARED. 

these poems what the true fountain of love poetry is, anci 
cannot help contrasting them in a very favourable manner 
with the artificial and cold sonnets of the school of Petrarch 
Tasso is altogether a poet of_feeiingj and as Ariosto is 
throughout a painter, so over the language and versification 
of Tasso there is poured forth the whole charm of music .; a 
circumstance \vhich has, without doubt, greatly contributed 
to render him the favourite poet of the Italians. His popu- 
larity exceeds very much that of Aliosta Individual parts 
and episodes of his poem are frequently sung in the gondo- 
las of the Arno and the Po; and the Italians having no ro- 
mantic ballads like those of the Spaniards, have, by cutting 
down the Jerusalem into fragments, supplied themselves with 
a body of ballads by far more harmonious, graceful, noble, 
and poetical, than was ever possessed by any other people. 
Perhaps this mode of dividing their'great poem was the best 
both for the enjoyment and the feeling of it, for there is in 
truth very little to be lost by throwing aside the connection 
of the poem as a whole. How little satisfied Tasso himself 
was with his own epical art, is sufficiently evident from the 
many changes and remodellings (for the most part unfortu- 
nate ones) which his great poem underwent. The first of 
his attempts was a mere romance of chivab'y ; afterwards, in 
the decline of life, he entirely recast the whole of the Jeru- 
salem, upon which his fame is founded, sacrificing to the 
morose morality which he had adopted, all the most delight- 
ful passages in the poem, and introducing, throughout the 
whole work, a cold and destructive^legory, little calculated 
to make up for what he had taken away. He also attempted 
a Christian epic on the subject of the Creation. But even 
with poetical powers much more powerful than his, how 
could it have been possible to extend a few mysterious w^ords 
of Moses into as many cantos with any portion of success ? 
In speaking of Dante I have already said something on the 
poetical ti'eatment of such subjects, and I mention this poem 
of Tasso here chiefly because it was this in particular which 
Milton had before his eyes. In his poem of the Creation^ 
Tasso laid aside the use of rhyme, although that forms in 
truth the greatest charm of many of his productions, and 
dithongh no poet ever possessed the same command over the 
instrument which he did; so severe a crrtic .was Tasso of 



CAMOENS AND TASSO COMPARED. 265 

his own poems. I do not however think that we should judge 
equally hardly of him ; he certainly does indulge in a few 
plays of thought, or concetti, as they are called, but he has 
beauties sufficient to atone for more than all his defects. 
What sort of an idea of poetry can remain to us. if we take 
from it the liberty to be a play of fancy ? If we are deter- 
mined to weigh and balance every thought so strictly, there 
is no question that nothing will remain with us but the so- 
briety of prose. Even in prose, if we analyze it with suffi- 
cient accuracy, we shall easily discover, in the works of the 
best writers, images, here and there, which are not perfectly 
jnst. Many of the fanciful thoughts of Tasso are not only 
full of meaning, but beautiful as images. A poet of feeling 
and of love may well be pardoned such trifling errors ; faults 
of the same kind may be found even in these amatory poems 
of the ancients, which are usually held up by modern critics 
like the head of the Gorgon, a terrible image of classical 
strength and purity, in opposition to the extravagant fancy of 
the romantic poets. 

If we regard Tasso merely as a musical poet of feeling, it 
forms in truth no proper subject of reproach, that he is in a 
certain sense uniform, and throughout sentimental. Unifor- 
mity of this sort seems to be inseparable from that poetry 
which is in its nature lyrical ; and I confess it seems to me 
even a beauty in Tasso, that he has spread this soft breath of 
elegy even over the- representation of the charms of sense. 
But an epic poet must be richer in every thing ; he must be 
multiform ; he must embrace a whole world of circumstan- 
ces — the spirit of the past and of the present, of his nation 
and of nature : he must have command, not over one chor^ 
alone, but be master of the whole complicated instrument oi 
feeling. In this sort of jiqetical wealth Camoens is far the 
^superioi^ of Tasso ;^ in his epic poem there are even many 
passages of tender feeling and of love, which may sustain a 
comparison with the most beautiful parts of Tasso. In him, 
too, amidst all the splendour and charm of his southern ima- 
gination, there breaks through at times a tone of delightful 
lamentation and sorrow ; and he is entitled to the name of a 
romantic poet, even had he no other claim, because he is 
entirely penetrated with the glow and inspiration of love. 
But he unites the picturesque fulness of Ariosto with the 

23 



266 GUARINl's PASTOR FIDO. 

musical magic of Tasso ; and what is far more important, 
he connects both of these with the serious dignity of the true 
heroic poet — an attribute which Tasso rather wished for 
than possessed. 

After what I have said, you will easily perceive that I 
make no secret pf preferring Camoens to either of the other 
great Catholic epic poets, Ariosto and Tasso. I am, how- 
ever, willing to confess, that such judgments as these are at 
all times produced more or less by personal feeling, for of 
all those component parts which make up the excellence of 
a poet, a few only can be subjected to the decision of general 
principles, while far more is left to be approved or disap- 
proved of, according as it may happen to suit the fancy or 
feeling of the individual. There is a well known anecdote 
of Tasso, which I cannot help wishing to recall to your re- 
collection : it is said that when he was asked which of the 
Italian poets was, in his opinion, the greatest, he replied, not 
without considerable emotion, that Ariosto was the second, 
— the self-love of a poet makes him set so exclusive a value 
on those qualities which he himself possesses. A lover of 
poetry is apt to be prejudiced in the same way in favour of 
those which he is himself most capable of feehng. 

I believe that in Tasso the poetical language of Italy ap- 
peared with as much of the noble and graceful dignity of the 
old Roman, as it could have, without throwing totally aside 
the nature and beauty peculiar to its own construction. After 
his time, the leaning to the^ntigue became every day stronger^ 
not only in respect to form and style of writing, but also to 
.siihj£cts^ The last great poet of the yet flourishing period, 
..Gtuarini,-also a poet of love like Tasso, shews himself in 
many individual passages of his lyrical pieces, to have been 
possessed of deeper thought, and even master of a more ele- 
vated style, than was ever attained by the poet of Jerusalem.- 
But in the love poems of Tasso, the strain of feeling is cer- 
tainly more natural and charming. Guarini's Arcadian, 
drama, the Pastor Fido, is without any laboured imitation, 
and akhough quite full of real feehng and love, entirely im- 
piegnated with the spirit of antiquity , and even in the fpjm 
of its composition, great and noble like the „drama of the 
Greeks!^ Upon the whole, the theatrical part of the elder 
Italian literature is by no mears the most brilliant one, and 



ITS CHARACTERISTIC BEAUTIES. 267 

their attempts at reviving tlie tragedy of the ancients have 
been above all miserably cold and unsuccessful ; it is some 
compensation for this, that so much perfection was reached 
in a new species of writing which — at least as used drama- 
tically — is quite peculiar to Italy. The superiority of the 
Italians, in this respect, has been acknowledged by the other 
nations of Europe; I doubt whether any modern poem has 
been so much admired and so often translated as the Pastor 
Fido. In France itself, down to the time of CorneiHej it 
was the favourite model of imitation. As a drama, indeed, 
it was by no means a work fitted to form a path, and estab- 
lish a theatre, and in so far it may be said to be very deficient 
in merit. But, on the other hand, the lyrical poetry of the 
Italians never took a bolder flight than in some of the 
choruses and particular speeches of this poem. In treating 
of Tasso, I have already spoken of that play of thought pe- 
culiar to the Romanic love poets, and the concetti of the 
Italians. The same grounds of apology which Tasso pos- 
sesses, may in general be pleaded in favour of Guarini, al- 
though it must be admitted that some passages are too remote 
from the natural and the innocently playful, too coldh^ elabo- 
rate and artificial to admit of any exculpation. Guarini has 
a few passages which might seem not unAvorthy of tlie noble 
and serious style of a great poet of antiquity ; but he certainly 
touches the limit of that region of voluptuous taste in which 
^larino appears to have delighted — a poet who has united 
every Ihing of luxuriant and effeminate which is to be found 
in Ovid, or any of the ancient amatory poets, with all of play- 
ful and conceited which can be gathered out of Petrarch, 
Tasso, and Guarini, and blended them all together into one 
sea of luscious sweetness, which is the more disagreeable to 
good taste because every part of the flood has the appearance 
of proceeding from the fountain not of nature but of imitation. 
The poetrj^ of Spain, in its separated situation, was both 
much longer upheld, and much more happily developed. 
The imitation of the antique was less predomuiant. because 
the national feeling was more acute and lively. For the 
same reason, the poetry of Spain was more connected wi^b 
J.he present ; romance writing acquired a point of excellence 
far above what is knowTi among any other people, and the 



268 DON QUIXOTTE OF CERVANTES. 

jheatre became, not only the most original, but also the 
richest in Europe. 

In poetry, the language of Spain has never had any one 
era which can be taken as a complete model of perfection 
for all other periods ; and although in later times Garcilasi3,. 
and the writers of his time, are commonly enough talked of 
as classics, this is only in a very limited meaning of the 
word. The poetical language of Spain remained at all 
times free ; a great deal too much art has, indeed, been at 
times employed upon it, and it has often heen formed into 
an appearance far too intensely poetical. But at no time 
has it been subjected to any universal rule, excepting only 
that which regards the prevalent system of metre. This 
appears so much the more remarkable, because even in the 
earliest times the prose language of the Spaniards attained 
a form the most fixed and regular; the sharpest precision 
has there become so much a second nature, that while the 
prose of other languages has for the most part tended to 
corruption in the way of neglect and carelessness, theirs has 
rather had to struggle with errors of an opposite description. 
The danger has been that of degenerating from extreme ac- 
curacy and acuteness into a sort of over nicety, for which 
they only have a precise name— -A hudeza. Yet of this de- 
fect there is no trace in some ofthe hest Spanish writers, 
among whom the first place is unquestionably due to Cerx„ 
vantes. In his writing, the prose authors of Spain possess 
a model of perfection, pure and exquisite, such as has never 
been attained by her poets, chiefly, it is probable, on account 
of the extreme luxuriance of imagination and invention by 
which they are distinguished. 

The great work of Cervantes is deserving of its fame, and 
of the admiration of all the nations of Europe, (which it has 
now enjoyed for more than two centuries,) not merely on ac- 
count of the beauty of its style, and the perfection of its nar- 
rative ; not merely because, of all works of wit, it is the 
richest in s])irit and invention ; but also because it is a most 
lively and altogether epic picture of the life and pt.^uliar 
character of Spaniards. It is from this that it derives its 
ever-enduring charm and value, while the many imitations 
of it, produced in France and England, are already forgotten 
or ill a fair way of becoming so. What I once said before, m 



THE OTHER WRITINGS OF CERVANTES. 269 

Speaking of poetical works of wit, — that in such works the 
writer should be careful so to adorn with a rich effusion of 
poetry his narrative, machinery, and the whole of his lan- 
guage, as to preserve undegraded his title to the name of a 
poet, receives a strong confirmation from the example of 
Cervantes. It is common enough to hear critics who talk 
of him enlarge altogether upon his satire, and say nothing of 
his poetry ; and there is no doubt that while satire is alike 
good to ail the world, his poetry is exquisitely Spanish. But 
he who is capable of studying and relishing Cervantes aright, 
well knows that mirth and seriousness, wit and poetry, are 
mingled with success elsewhere unparalleled in this rich pic- 
ture of life, and that of no one of these elements can the 
worth and beauty be appreciated unless we observe how it is 
graced and adorned by the juxtaposition or absolute infusion 
of the others. The other prose works of Cervantes, his_pa^ 
toral n)inance,.,Galateaj his novels, and the pilgrim romance 
which he wrote last of all, partake more or less in these 
qualities of style and invention which distinguish his Don 
_^^uixote — a work which is entirely unique in species, and 
which, the more it is imitated, appears even the more inimi- 
table. This w^ork is the proudest ornament of Spanish lite- 
rature ; and with justice may the Spaniards be proud of a 
romance, which, as an universal national work, has been 
equalled by no other writer of this order, and which, as a 
picture of the life, manners, and spirit of a nation, is almost 
entitled to be classed with the most admirable productions of 
the epic muse. 

2a* 



LECTURE XII. 



OF ROMANCE DRAMATIC POETRY OF THE SPANIARDS SPEVSER, SHAKE- 
SPEARE, AND MILTON AGE OF LEWIS XIV.- — THE FRENCH THEATRE. 



The romance of Cervantes has been, notwithstanding its 
high internal excellence, a dangerous and unfortunate model 
for the imitation of other nations. The Don Quixote, a 
work in its kind of unexampled invention, has been the ori- 
gin of the whole modern romances, and of a crowd of un- 
successful attempts among French, English, and Germans, 
the object of which was to elevate into a species of poetry 
the prosaic representation of the actual and the present. To 
say nothing of the genius of Cervantes, which stands entirely 
by itself, and was sufficient to secure him from many of the 
faults of his successors, the situation in which he cultivated 
prose fiction was fortunate far above what has fallen to the 
lot of any of them. The actual life in Spain in his day was 
much more chivalric and romantic than it has ever since 
been in any country of Europe. Even the want of a very 
exact civil subordination, and the free, or rather lawless life 
of the provinces, might be of use to his imagination. 

In all these attempts to raise the realities of Spanish life 
by wit and adventure, or by the extraordinary excitements 
of thought and feeling, to a species of poetic fiction, we can 
perceive that the authors are always anxious to create for 
themselves, in some way or other, the advantages of a poetic 
distance; if it were only in the life of Italian artists, a sub- 
ject frequently treated in German romances, or in that of 
American woods and wildernesses, one very common among 
those of foreigners. Even when the scene of the fable is 
laid entirely at home, and within the sphere of the common 
citizen life, the narrative, so long as it continues to be narra- 
tive, and does not lose itself altogether in wit, humour or 



OF ROMANCES. 27 i 

sentiment, is ever anxious to extend, in some degree, the 
limit of that reality by Avhich it is confined, and to procure 
somewhere an opening into the region where fancy is more 
at libert}' in her operations : when no other method can be 
found, travelling adventures, duels, elopements, a band oi 
robbers, or the intrigues and anxieties of a troop of strollers, 
are introduced pretty evident!}" more for the sake of the 
author than of his hero. 

The idea of the Romanti: in these romances, even in 
some of the best and most celebrated of them, appears to co- 
incide very closely with that of irregulated and dissolute con- 
duct. I remember it was the observation of a great philoso- 
pher, that the moment the world should see a perfect police, 
the moment there should be no contraband trad^. and the 
traveller's pass should contain an exact portrait end biogra- 
phy of its bearer, that moment it would become q"ite impos- 
sible to write a good romance; for that then not'.ing could 
occur in real life Avhich might, with an^^ moderat ■ degree of 
ornament, be formed into the groundwork of such a fiction. 
The expression seems quaint, but. I suspect, the opinion is 
founded very nearly upon the truth. 

To determine the true and proper relation between poetry, 
and the past or the present, involves the investigation of the 
whole depth and essence of the art. In general, in our the- 
ories, with the exception of some very general, meaningless, 
and most commonly false definitions of the art itself and of 
the beautiful, the chief subjects of attention are always the 
mere forms of poetry, things necessary without doubt, but by 
no means sufficient, to be known. As yet there has scarcely 
been any theory with regard to the proper subject of poetry, 
although such a theory would e\-idently be far the most 
useful in regard to the effect which poetry is to have upon 
life. In the preceding discourses I have endeavoured to 
supply this defect, and to give some glimpses of such a theory, 
wherever the nature of my topics has furnished me with an 
opportunity. -^ 

With regard to the representation of actual life in poetry, 
we must, above all things, remember that it is by no means 
certain that the actual and present are intractable or unwor- 
thy subjects of poetical representation, merely because in 
themselves they appear less noble and uncommon than the 



272 OF POETRY PAST AND PRESENT. 

past. It is true that m what is near and present, the com- 
mon and unpoetical, come at all times more strongly and 
more conspicuously into view ; while in the remote and the 
past, they ocupy the distance, and leave the foreground to 
be filled with forms of greatness and sublimity alone. But 
this difficulty is one which the true poet can easily conquer; 
his art has no more favourite mode of displaying itself than 
in lending to things of common-place, and every day occur- 
rence, the brilliancy of a poetic illumination, by extracting 
from them higher signification, and deeper purpose, and 
more refined feeling, than we had before suspected them of 
concealing, or dreamed them to be capable of exciting. 
Still the precision of the present is at all times binding and 
confining for the fancy, and when we, by our subject, im- 
pose so many fetters upon her, there is always reason to 
fear, that she will be inclined to make up for this restraint, 
by an excess of liberty in regard, to language and description 
V^ To make my views upon this point intelligible to you ir 
I the shortest way, I need only recall to your recollecuon 
what I said some time ago, with regard to subjects of a re- 
ligious or Christian import. The invisible world, the Deity, 
and pure intellects, can never, upon the whole, be with pro- 
priety represented by us ; nature and human beings are the 
proper and immediate subjects of poetry. But the higher 
and spiritual world can be everywhere embodied and sha- 
dowed forth in our terrestrial materials. In like manner 
the indirect representation of the actual and the present is 
the best and most appropriate. The bloom of young life, 
and the high ecstasies of passion, as well as the maturity 
of wise reflection, may all be combined with the old tradi- 
tions of our nation ; they will there have more room for ex- 
ertion, and be displayed in a purer light than the present 
can command. The oldest poet of the past. Homer, is at 
the same time to us a describer of the present in its ut- 
most liveliness and freshness. Every true poet carries into 
the past his own age, and, in a certain sense, himself The 
following appears to me to be the true account of the proper 
relation between poetry and time. The proper business of 
poetry is to represent only the eternal, that which is, at all 
places, and in all times, significant and beautiful; but this 
cannot be accomplished without the intervention of a veil. 



SPANISH DRAMATIC POETRY. 273 

Poetry requires to have a corporeal habitation, and this she 
finds in her best sphere, the traditions of a nation, the recol- 
lections and past of a people. In her representations of these, 
however, she introduces the whole wealth of the present, so 
far as that is susceptible of poetical ornament ; she plunges 
also into the future, because she explains the apparent mys- 
teries of earthly existence, accompanies individual life 
through all its development, down to its period of termina- 
tion, and sheds from her magic mirror the light of a higher 
interpretation upon all things ; she embraces all the Jenses, 
the past, the present, and the future, in order to make a truly 
sensible representation of the eternal or the perfect time. 
Even in a philosophical sense, eternity is no nonentit}^^ no 
mere negation of time, but rather its entire and undivided 
fulness, wherein all its elements are united, Avhere the past 
becomes again new and present, and with the present itself, 
is mingled the abundance of hope, and all the richness of 
futurity. 

Although, upon the whole, I consider the indirect repre- 
sentation of the present as the one most suitable for poetry , 
I would by no means be understood to be passing a judg- 
ment of condemnation upon all poetical works which follow 
the opposite path. We must leave the artist to be the judge 
of his own work. The true poet can shew his power even 
though he takes a wrong way, and composes works which 
are far from perfection in regard to their original foundation. 
Milton and Klopstock must at all times be honoured as poets 
of the first class, although no one will deny that they have 
both done themselves the injustice to choose subjects w^hich 
they never could adequately describe. 

In like manner, to Richardson, who erred in a very op- 
posite way, by trying to imitate Cervantes in elevating to 
poetry the realities of modern life, we cannot refuse the 
praise of a great talent for dfiscriplion^ and of having at 
least manifested great vigour in his course, ahhough the 
goal which he wished to reach was one entirely beyond his 
power. 

The spirit of Spanish fiction has distinguished itself uith 
equal excellence, and with far more richness, upon the the- 
atre than in romance. The lyrical poetry of feeling is the 
fruit of solitary love and inspiration ; even when it does not 



274 SPAIN IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 

confine itself to the immediate circumstances of an individual, 
when it seizes upon an age and a nation, it is still powerful 
only as the emanation of individual feeling. But heroic 
poetry implies a nation, one which either is now or has 
been, one which possesses recollections, a great past, a le- 
gendary history, an original and poetical mode of thinking 
and observing, — a mythology. Both of these species, the 
lyric as well as the epic, are much more the children of na- 
ture than of art. But dramatic poetry is the production of 
the city and society ; nay, it cannot flourish unless it have a 
great metropolis to be the centre point of its development 
Such, at least, is its most natural and happy situation : al- 
though schools of imitation and rivalry, established in small- 
er spheres of action, may in the sequel contend at times not 
unsuccessfully with the capital, the first seat of the dramatic 
art. There is no difficulty in perceiving why the stages of 
Madrid, London, and Paris, enjoyed a full century of splen- 
dour ; were brought, each in its own way, to perfection ; 
and were rich, almost to superfluity, long before either Italy 
or Germany could be said to possess any thing worthy, 
propei'ly speaking, of the name of a theatre. For although 
Rome has been, even from antiquity, the capital of the 
church, and Vienna, ever since the fifteenth century, the 
seat of the German empire, yet neither the one city nor the 
other has ever become the metropolis of a nation in the same 
manner with those three great cities of France, England, 
and Spain. 

As the Spanish monarchy was, down to the middle of the 
seventeenth century, the greatest and the most splendid in 
Europe, and as the national spirit of the Spaniards was the 
most developed, so the stage of Madrid, the living mirror of 
Spanish life, was the first which arrived at its period of 
glory. Its riches and fulness of invention have, at all times, 
been recognized by the rest of Europe ; to its peculiar form 
and meaning, to the true spirit and sense of the Spanish dra- 
ma, less justice has been done. Had it no other advantage 
but this, that it is thoroughly romantic, that alone would be 
sufficient to render it an object well worthy of attention; it 
would be a very interesting thing to see what sort of dra- 
Tiatic poetry that is, which is the pure production of the 
chivalric poetry in general, and of that peculiar direction of 



LOPE DE VEGA. 275 

fancy which belongs to modern Europe and the middle ages. 
In the theatre of no other country can we find so good an 
example of this as in the Spanish, which alwa3^s remained 
quite free from all influence and imitation of the antique 4 
while, on the other hand, the Italians and French ha^e 
been led awa}'' by their desire to renew in their purity the 
proper tragedy and comedy of the Greeks, and while these 
models (acting, as they did. chiefly through the medium of 
Seneca and the older French plays) have not been without 
a very considerable influence even upon the drama of the 
English. 

If w^e consider the Spanish stage in its first celebrated 
lord and master, Lope de^Vega, its general excellencies 
will appear to us only in a" dim and imperfect light; and 
we shall, upon the whole, form no very high opinion of the 
perfection of the Spanish drama : so hasty and redundant 
are his almost innumerable plays. As in the lyrical songs 
of one poet, so also in all the dramatic works of one artist, 
there may in general be observed a certain uniformity and 
resemblance, which must, of course, lighten very much the 
labour of his composition. In the dramas not only of one 
poet, but even of a whole age or an entire nation, the ground- 
work is often one general j dea, which in all of them is 
properly the same, although in each it is presented in a dif- 
ferent point of view, and acting with a diflerent species of 
operation ; like so many variations of a juridical theme, or 
so many various propositions in mathematics, all following 
from the adoption of the same general principle. When a 
poet has once clearly and thoroughly comprehended this 
idea, and fixed upon the manner in which he is to use it for 
his idea and his stage, provided he be at the same time a 
perfect master of language and theatrical effect, it may very 
easily happen that he shall produce a very great number of 
works in a very regular form, and even without appearing 
£0 have been guilty of negligence either in regard to the ex- 
pression or the arrangement of his productions. It was thus 
that the great dramatists of antiquity produced, each of them, 
more than a hundred plays. But the number of the dramas 
of Lope de Vega, however liberal we may be, must cer- 
tamly surpass all limit of permitted fertility. The greater 
part of them must have been not composed, in any proper 



276 GENIUS OF LOFE DE VEGA. 

sense of the word, but dashed off' in the manner of a mere 
improvisatore. I admit that Lope, among all dramatic ready- 
writers, and bulky writers of all nations, and down to the 
very latest times, is the first and the most of a poet, in rich- 
ness of invention, in splendour of imagination, and in the. 
fire and sti;«ngth of his language. The two last qualities 
are indeed so common in ail the poetry of his nation, that 
we need scarcely enlarge upon their praise as belonging 
peculiarly to him. Considered by itself, this swiftness of 
dramatic composition, even with all the talent and fancy oi 
Lope de Vega, is by no means excusable, either in a poetical 
or in a moral point of vieAV. A strength of arrangement, 
and a steady law, are so much the more necessary for the 
stage, because in no other species of composition are care- 
lessness and corruption so easily tolerated, in no other are 
the public and the author in so much danger of leading each 
other astray. How easy it must be for a dramatist of such 
genius as Lope, to carry his age beyond all limits of judg 
ment; how easily, even one, without any very splendid 
qualifications, by means of a sort of theatrical routine, and a 
little skill in passionate effect, may bring the public taste to 
such a point that all higher requisites and ideas are entirely 
forgotten ; — we have had so many examples of all this, that 
it would be quite useless to expatiate upon it. On the other 
side, theatrical success, we must remember, is of all other 
means of excitement the strongest and most irresistible in 
its operation on the vanity of a poet. The public themselves 
are in general the first to spoil a favourite dramatist ; they 
express so much satisfaction with his early and imperfect at- 
tempts, that it is no wonder he should soon consider himself as 
absolved from all obligation to be careful in his compositions. 
This danger of demagogic corruption and anarchy is a cir- 
cumstance which was often remarked and lamented by the 
best of all dramatic judges, the ancients. 

However much, in regard to some other species of poetry, 
as for example that which is properly called popular poetry, 
our indulgence may be due to a rapid and careless method 
of composition, the theatre has no similar claim. The stage 
is entirely a creature of art, and even although hasty and 
inaccurate writing may be tolerated in plays, unless their 
plan be clearly laid, and their purpose profoundly considered, 



THE DRAMATIC GENIUS OF CALDERON. 277 

they want the ver}^ essence of dramatic pieces : unless they 
be so composed, they may indeed amuse us with a view of 
the fleeting- and surface part of life, and of the perplexities 
and passions, but they can have none of that deep sense and 
import, without which the concerns of life, whether real or 
imitated, are not worthy of our study. These lower excel-, 
lencies of the dramatic art are possessed in great abundance 
by Lope de Vega, and many others of the ordinary Spanish 
dramatists ; the plays of these men display great brilliancy 
of poetry and imagination, but when we compare them with 
the profounder pieces of the same or of some other stages, 
Ave perceive at once that their beauties are only of a secon- 
dary class, and that they afford no reat gratification to the 
hio-her parts of our intellect. How little these, indeed, are 
accustomed to be taken into account, we may easily gather 
from the single fact, that very many critics usually speak of 
Calderon, and Lope de Vega, as poets of the same order, 
while in truth it would be difficult to find two men more 
entirely and radically dissimilar both in mind and in art. If 
we would form a proper opinion of the Spanish drama, we 
must study it only in its perfection, in Calderon — the last 
and greatest of all the Spanish poets. _ , .; 

Before his time, affectation, on the other hand, and utter 
carelessness on the other, were predominant in the Spanish 
poetry: what is singular enough, these apparently opposite 
faults were often to be found in the same piece. The evil 
example of Lope de Vega ^vas not confined to the depart- 
ment of the stage. Elevated by his theatrical success, like 
many other fluent poets, he had the vanity to suppose that 
he might easily shine in many other species of writing, for 
which he possessed, in truth, no sort of genius. Not con- 
tented with being considered as the first dramatist of his 
country, nothing less would serve him but to compete with 
Cervantes in romance, and with Tasso and Ariosto in the 
chivalric epic. The influence of his careless and corrupt 
mode of composition was thus extended beyond the theatre ; 
while the faults from which he Avas most free, those of ex- 
cessive artifice and affectation in language and expression, 
were carried to the highest pitch by Clongora and Q,uevedo. 
Calderon survived this age of poetical corruptions ; nay, he 
was born in it. and he had first to free the poetry of his 

24 



t 



278 CHARACTERISTICS OF CALDEROJN. 

country from the chaos, before he could ennoble it anew 
beautify and purify it by the flames of love, and conduct it 
at ast to the utmost limit of its perfection. 

This incident in the history of Spanish poetry, its sudden 
rise to unexampled excellence, immediately following a pe- 
riod of unexampled corruption, is one very Avell worthy of 
our attention. It may serve as a sufficient correction of the 
common-place opinions and theories on which the doctrine 
of regular progress and decline in art is maintained. For 
our own age and nation it may be a lesson of great value, to 
see how, from the midst of dead artifice and corrupted ex- 
crescence, the imagination and poetry of Spain sprung at 
the call of one voice into light and beauty, as the Phoenix 
IS regenerated and renewed out of the ashes of her own 
decay. 

But in order to set before you the spirit of the Spanish 
drama as it appears in its perfection in the works of Calde- 
ron, it is necessary for me to prefix a few words upon the 
true essence of the dramatic art in general, according to the 
peculiar views which I have adopted. It is only in the first 
and lowest scale of the drama, that I can place those pieces 
in which we are presented with the visible surface of life 
alone, the fleeting appearance of the rich picture of the world. 
It is thus that I view them, even although they display the 
highest sway of passion in tragedy, or the perfection of all 
social refinements and absurdities in comedy, so long as the 
whole business of the play is limited to external appearan- 
ces, and these things are brought before us merely in per- 
spective, and as pictures for the purposes of drawing our at- 
tention, and awakening the sjmipathy of our passions The 
second order of the art is that, where in dramatic representa- 
tions, together with passion and the pictoric appearance of 
things, a spirit of more profound sense and thought is pre- 
dominant over the scene, ^vherein there is displaj^ed a deep 
knowledge, not of individuals and their affairs alone, but of 
our whole species, of the world and of life, in all their mani- 
fold shapes, contradictions, and catastrophes, of man and of 
his being, that darkest of riddles — as such — as a riddle. 
Were this profound knowledge of us and our nature the only 
end of dramatic poetry, Shakespeare would not merely de- 
serve to be called the first in his art but there coula scarcely 



THE END OF DRAMATIC POEIRY. 279 

be found a single poet, either among the ancients or the 
modems, worthy for a moment to be compared with him. 
But in my opinion the art of the dramatic poet has, besides 
all this, yet another and a higher end. The enigma of life 
should not barely be expressed but solved; the peiplexities 
of the present should indeed be represented, but from them 
our view should be led to the last development and the final 
issue. The poet should entwine the future with the present, 
and lay before our eyes the mysteries of the internal man. 
This is indeed something quite different from what we com- 
monly demand in a tragedy by the name of catastrophe. 
There are many celtbrate;d dramatic works wherein that 
soit of denouement, to which I here allude, is altogether 
awanting, or which, at least, have only the outward form, 
but are quite destitute of the internal being and spirit of it. 
For the sake of brevitrj^ I may here refer you to what I said, 
in one of my late lectures, concerning the three worlds of 
Dante, and of the art with which he has represented to us 
three great classes of human beings, some in the abyss of 
despair, some in the region of hope and purification, some 
in the enjoyment of perfect blessedness. All that I then said 
may be applied in a certain way to the dramas, and in this 
sense might Dante himself be called a dramatic poet, but that 
he has chosen to give us only a series of catastrophes, with- 
out setting befoie us, except by some casual allusion, the ac- 
tions and passions of which these catastrophes are the result. 
Corresponding to these denouements of human destiny, there 
are also three modes of that high, serious, dramatic repre- 
sentation, which sets forth, not merely the appearances of 
life, but also its deeper purpose and spirit, which gives us 
not only the knot but the solution of our existence. In one 
of these we lose sight of the hero in the darkness of a per- 
fect destruction ; in another the conclusion, although min- 
gled with a certain dawn of pleasure, is yet half sorrowful 
in its impression ; and there is a third, wherein out of misery 
and death we see a new life arisen, and behold the illumina- 
tion of the internal man. To shew what I mean by dra- 
mas, whose termination is the total ruin of their heroes. 1 ^ / ' 
may memion among the tragedies of the moderns, Wallen^M'^**^ 
stein, Macbeth, and the Faustus of the people. The dra- 
matic art of the ancients had a peculiar fondness for this alto- 



V 



280 MODERN TRAGEDIES. 

gether tragical catastrophe, which accorded well with theii 
belief in a terrible and predestinating fate. Yet a tragedy 
of this kind is perhaps the more perfect in proportion as the 
destruction is represented not as any thing external, capri- 
cious, or predestinated, but as a darkness into which the 
hero has sunk step by step, descending not \n ithout free will, 
and in consequence of his own guilt. Such is the case in 
those three great modern tragedies which I have cited. 

This is, upon the whole, the favourite species among the 
ancients, yet their theatre is not without some beautiful speci- 
mens of the second and milder termination : examples of it 
occur in both of the two greatest of the Greek tragedians. 
It is thus that ^schylus, after he has opened before us the 
darkest abyss of sorrow and guilt, in the death of Agamem- 
non, and the vengeance of Orestes, closes his mighty picture 
in the Eumenides with a pleasing feeling, and the final quel- 
ling of the spirit of evil by the intervention of a milder and 
propitious Deity. Sophocles, in like manner, after repre- 
senting the blindness and the fate of (Edipus, the miserable 
fate and mutual fratricide of his sons, the long sorrows of 
the sightless old man and his faithful daughter, is careful to 
throw a ray of cheering light upon the death of his hero, 
and to depict in such colours his departure into the protec- 
tion of pitying and expecting deities, as to leave upon our 
minds an impression rather of soothing and gentle melan- 
choly than of tragical distress. There are many instances 
of the same kind both in the ancient theatre and the modern ; 
but few wherein the working of the passions is adorned with 
so much beauty of poetry as in these. 

The third method of dramatic conclusion, which by its 
representation makes a .spiritual jgurificatio;n to be the result 
of ^external sorrows, is the one most adapted for a Christian 
poet, and in this the first and greatest of all masters is Calde- 
ron. Among the great variety of his pieces I need only re- 
fer you to the Devotion of the Cross^ and the Steadfast Prince^ 
plays which have been very frequently translated, and the 
remarkable excellence of which has been, upon the whole, 
pretty generally recognized. The Christianity of this poet, 
however, does not consist so much in the external circum- 
stances which he has selected, as in his peculiar feeling, and 
the method of treating his subject which is most common 



COMPARED WITH THESE OF THE ANCIENTS. 281 

with him. Even where his materials furnish him with no 
oppoitunity of drawing the perfect development of a new life 
out of death and suffering, yet every thing is conceived in 
the spirit of this Christian love and purification, everything 
seen in its light, and clothed in the splendour of its heavenly 
colouring. In every situation and circumstance, Calderon 
is, of all dramatic poets, the most Christian, and for that very 
reason the most romantic. 

Since the Spanish poetry remained at all times free from 
foreign influence, and throughout purely romantic, — since 
the Christian chivalric poetry of the middle ages, continued 
with this nation far longer than with any other even down 
to the times of their most modern refinement, and received 
among them a form more elegant than elsewhere, this may 
appear to be no improper place for saying something in 
general, concerning the essence of the romantic. It consists 
entirely in that feeling of love which is predominant in the 
Christian religion, and through it in poetry also, by which 
sorrows are represented as only the way to happiness, by 
which the tragic serious of the Greek mythology, and hea- 
thenish antiquity, is softened into a more cheering play of 
fancy, and in consequence of which, even in regard to the 
external forms of representation and language, every thing 
is selected which seems most to harmonize with this feeling 
of love and this play of fancy. In this sense of the word, 
taking the romantic to mean nothing more than the peculiar 
beaut}?- and poetry of Christianity, all poetry might seem to 
have some claim to the epithet. In fact, the romantic is by 
no means inconsistent with the ancients and the true antique. 
The legends of Troy, and the poems of Homer, are through- 
out romantic ; so is all of the really poetic kind which is to 
be found in the old verses of Indians, Persians, Arabians, or 
Europeans. Wherever the highest life is comprehended 
and represented in its deeper meaning, there are to be heard 
at least some echoes of that godlike love, whose centre point 
and full harmony lies certainly in the Christian religion. 
Even in the ancient tragedians the echoes of this feeling are 
here and there scattered, in spite of the general darkness a-nd 
worldliness of their conceptions, the internal love in the 
midst of all their errors and false images of horror, breaks 
through in noble sentiments, and diffuses the light of its 
24* 



282 ELEMENTS OF DRAMATIC COMPOSITION. 

sublimity over all their bewildered imaginations, ^schylus 
and Sophocles are not worthy of adm^iration on account oi 
their inimitalde composition alone, but of their ^rofaund feel- 
_Jng and sentiment In none of the vivid and natural poets 
of antiquity is this charm entirely wanting. The romantic 
is not opposed to the ancients and the antique, but to those 
false and frigid erudite among ourselves, who strive to imi- 
tate the form without being gifted with any portion of the 
enthusiasm of the antique; and those other moderns who, 
'abouring under an equal mistake, attempt to increase their 
influence upon active life by making the present their sub- 
ject, and fail in their attempt, because the confinement to 
which they thus voluntarily condemn themselves is more 
than sufficient to neutralize any advantage which they might 
have hoped to derive. 

It will easily be understood that between these three species 
of dramatic conclusion and representation, — that of destruc- 
tion, of reconciliation, and of glorification, there must be 
room for many intermediate steps and bl endings. It was 
only for the purpose of letting you know what I conceive to 
be the true termination of a dramatic piece, that I have for- 
mally and separately described these three species, — al- 
though, after all, they certainly are to be found separately 
as well as mingled. Even the opposition of ancients and 
moderns is not a perfect one, but depends merely on the pre- 
ponderance of one element — a more or a less. Even among 
the ancient plays we may find some approximations to thai, 
method of tragic representation which terminates in purifica- 
tion, and in like manner, we may find, among the moderns, 
tragedies of utter destruction, which can sustain a comparison 
with the most powerful masterpieces of the ancients, with 
whom that was the more favourite species of catastrophe. 

Since, however, the excellence of dramatic representation 
lies in the internal depth of feeling, and the hidden mysteries 
of the spiritual life, it is evident that the works of antiquity, 
whatever may be their perfection as pieces of writing, and 
as high models to stimulate our ambition, they can in par- 
ticular instances furnish no fit rule or example for our imi- 
tation. In general we may be assured, that in regard to the 
nigher drama and tragedy, there cannot be such a thing as 
>i rule useful for all nations. Even the modes of feeling 



STATE OF THE SPANISH DRAMA 283 

among" the Christian peoples (connected'as they are by their 
common religion) here, where the peculiar principle of the 
internal life should be most powerfully brought forward, are 
found to be so essentially different, that it would be foolish to 
require any universal harmony, or to imagine that any one 
nation could lay down effectual laws for the other. In re- 
gard to tragedy and the higher drama at least, so intimately 
are these connected with internal life and peculiar feeling, 
that every nation must be the inventor of its own form and 
its own rules. 

I am very far, then, from wishing to see the Spanish drama 
or Calderon adopted as a perfect and exclusive model for our 
theatre; but I am so sensible of the high perfection to which 
the Christian tragedy and drama attained in the hands ol 
that great and divine master, that I think he cannot be too 
much studied as a distant and inimitable specimen of excel- 
lence, by any one who would make the bold attempt to rescue 
the modern stage, either in Germany or elsewhere, from the 
feeble and ineffectual state into which it has fallen. Least 
of all is the external form of the Spanish drama suitable for 
us. Its flowery- fulness of images and southern fancies may 
be excellent, where this overflowing wealth is nature, but to 
imitate these qualities elsewhere is the height of absurdity. 
The remarks which I have already made on more occasions 
than one, with regard to the poetical representation of mysti- 
cal subjects, may be applicable in general to those plays of 
Calderon which are in their import allegoric and Christian. 

The ^^chiefjault of Calderon — for even he is not without 
them — is, that he, in other respects the best of all romantic 
dramatists, carries us too quickly to the great denouement 
of which I have spoken above ; for the effect which this 
produces on us would have been very much increased by 
our being kept longer in doubt, had he more frequently 
characterized the riddle of human life with the profundity 
of Shakespeare, — had he been less sparing in affording us, 
at the commencement, glimpses of that light which should 
be preserved and concentrated upon the conclusion of the 
drama. Shakespeare has exactly the opposite fault, of too 
often placing before our eyes, in all its mystery and perplex- 
ity, the riddle of life: like a sceptical poet, without giving us 
tmy hint o^ the solution. Even when he does bring his 



284 ANCIENT AND MODERN DRAMA. 

drama to a last and a proper denouement, it is much more 
frequently tn one of utter destruction after the manner of the 
old tragedians, or at least to one of an intermediate and half 
satisfactory nature, than to that termination of perfect purifi- 
cation which is predominant in Calderon. In the deepest 
recesses of his feeling and thought, it has always struck me 
that Shakespeare is far more an ancient — I mean an ancient 
not of the Greek but of the Northern or Scandinavian ca.'^t 
— ^than a Christian. In some particulars at least we must 
■allow that the Spanish drama affords the best of all modelr, 
particularly in regard to its comedy, which is in every re- 
spect thoroughly romantic, and therefore truly poetical 
Even upon the stage no true success can ever attend any 
attempts to raise the representation of the prosaic reality to 
the rank of poetry, either by means of psj'chological acu- 
men, or the wit of society; and whoever compares what go 
on other stages by the name of flays of i?itrigue and plays 
of character, with the romantic witchery of the pieces of 
Calderon. and his countr^Tiien, -s^-ill scarcely be able to find 
words to express his sense of the immeasurable superiority 
of their poetical wealth over the poverty of the German stage ; 
above all. over what passes for wit in the comedies with 
which w^e are entertained. 

The poetry of all the southern and Catholic countries 
continued throughout the sixteenth, and even in the seven- 
teenth century, to partake of the same qualities and undergo 
the same vicissitudes. In the other countries of Europe a 
great rupture was produced by the reception of the Protes- 
tant faith, for the old creed could not be driven into contempt 
without carrying along with it a variety of images, allu- 
sions, personifications, poetic traditions and legends, and 
modes of poetical composition, which were more or less in- 
timately connected with it. As among the Protestant coun- 
tries, the one which retained most of the old system, both in 
regard to the condition of the clergy, and the pxternal forms 
of worship, was England, so here also was poetry first cul- 
tivated in a rich and beaufiful manner, and, it may be added, 
in a manner resembling in every important particular, the 
poetry of the Catholic south; this is sufficiently manifest in 
Spenser, Shakspeare, and Milton. There is no occasion to 
recall to your remembrance how fond Shakspeare is of the 



CHAUCER, SPENSER, AND MILTON. 285 

romantic of the chivalrous time, and even of the southern 
colouring of fancy ; Spenser is himself a poet of chivalry, 
and both he and Mihon followed romantic, above all Italian, 
models. The nearer literature comes to ourselves, the richer 
her productiveness appears in these modern times, so m.uch 
the more necessary does it become for me to confine myself 
to those poets and those writers alone, who mark the perfec- 
tion of language, and cultivation in their nations, and are on 
that account for other nations, and for the w^hole world, the 
most important and instructive. But in truth these three 
greatest poets of England contain within themselves every 
thing that is really great and remarkable in regard to her 
elder literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth ages 

The chivalrous poem of Spenser, the Fairy Queen, pre- 
sents us with a complete view^ of the spirit of romance which 
yet lingered in England among the subjects of Elizabeth ; 
that maiden queen who saw herself, with no ordinary de- 
light, deified while yet alive, by such playful fancies of my- 
thology and the muse. Spenser is a perfect master of the 
picturesque ; in his lyrical pieces there breathes all the ten- 
derness of the Idyll, the very spirit of the Troubadours. 
Not only in the species and manner of his poetry, but even 
in his language, he bears the most striking resemblance to 
our old German poets of love and chivalry. The history 
of the English literature was indeed quite the reverse of 
ours. Chaucer is not unlike our poets of the sixteenth cen- 
tury: but Spenser is the near kinsman of the tender and 
melodious poets of our older time. In every language which 
is, like the English, the product of the blending of two dif- 
ferent dialects, there must always be two ideals, according 
as the poet shall lean more to the one or the other of the 
elements w^hereof his language is composed. Of all the 
English poets the most Teutonic is Spenser; while Mil- 
ton, on the contrary, has an evident partiality to the Latin 
part of the English tongue. The only unfortunate part of 
Spenser's poetry is its form. The allegory which he has 
selected and made the groundwork of his chief poem, is not 
one of that lively kind which prevails in the elder chival- 
rous fictions, wherein the idea of a spiritual hero, and the 
mysteries of his higher vocation, are concealed under the 
likeness of external adventures and tangible events. It ia 



286 CHARACTERISTICS OF SHAKESPEARE. 

only a dead allegory, a mere classification of all the virtues 
of an ethical system; in short, such a one, that, but for 
the proper names of the personages, we should never sus- 
pect any part of their history to contain '' more than meets 
the ear." 

The admiration with which Shakespeare regarded Spen- 
ser, and the care with which he imitated him in his lyrical 
and idyllic poems, are circumstances of themselves sufficient 
to make us study, with the liveliest interest, the poem of the 
Fairy Glueen. It is in these minor pieces of Shakespeare, 
that we are first introduced to a personal knowledge of the 
great poet and his feelings. When he wrote sonnets, it 
seems as if he had considered himself as more a poet than 
when he wrote plays ; he was the manager of a theatre, and 
he viewed the drama as his business ; on it he exerted all 
his intellect and power, but when he had feelings intense 
and secret to express, he had recourse to a form of writing 
with which his habits had rendered him less familiar. It is 
strange but delightful to scrutinize, in his short effusions, the 
character of Shakespeare. In them we see, that he who 
stood like a magician above the world, penetrating with one 
glance into all the depths, and mysteries, and perplexities ot 
human character, and having power to call up into open 
day the darkest workings of human passions — that this great 
being was not deprived of any portion of his human sympa- 
thies by the elevation to which he was raised, but preserved, 
amidst all his stern functions, a heart overflowing with ten- 
derness, purity, and love. His feelings are intense, profound, 
acute, almost to selfishness, but he expresses them so briefly 
and modestly, as to form a strange contrast with most of 
those poets who write concerning themselves. For the 
right understanding of his dramatic works, these lyrics are 
of the greatest importance. They show us, that in his dra- 
mas he very seldom speaks according to his own feelings, 
or his own thoughts, but according to his knowledge. The 
world lay clear and distinct before his eyes, but between him 
and it there was a deep gulf fixed. He gives us a portrait 
of what he saw, without flattery or ornament, having the 
charm of unrivalled accuracy and truth. Were understand- 
ing, acuteness, and profoundness of thought, (in so far as 
these are necessary for the characterizing of human life,) to 



THE PECULIARITIES OF SHAKESPEARE. 287 

be considered as the first qualities of n poet, there is none 
worthy to be compared with Shakespeare. Other poets 
have endeavoured to transport us, at least for a few moments, 
into another and an ideal condition of mankind. But Shake- 
5peare is the master of reality; he sets before us, with a 
truth that is often painful, man in his degraded state, in this 
corruption, which penetrates and contaminates all his being, 
all that he does and suffers, all the thoughts and aspirations 
of his fallen spirit. In this respect he may not unfrequently 
be said to be a satirical poet : and well, indeed, may the pic- 
ture which he presents of human debasement, and the enig- 
ma of our being, be calculated to produce an effect far more 
deep and abiding than the whole body of splenetic and pas- 
sionate rerilers. whom we commonly call by the name of 
satiric poets. In the midst of all the bitterness of Shakespeare, 
we perceive continual glimpses of thoughts and recollections 
more pure than satirists partake in: meditation on the ori- 
ginal height and elevation of man. — the peculiar tenderness 
and noble minded sentiment of a poet : the dark world of 
his representation is illuminated with the most beautiful 
rays of patriotic inspiration, serene philanthropy, and glow- 
ing love. 

But even the youthful glow of love appears in his Romeo 
as the mere inspiration of death, and is mingled with the 
same sceptical and melancholy views of life which, in Ham- 
let, give to all our being an appearance of more than natu- 
ral discord and perplexity, and which, in Lear, carry sor- 
row and passion into the utmost misery of madness. This 
poet, who externally seems to be most cahn and temperate, 
clear and lively, — with whom intellect seems every where 
to preponderate — who, as we at first imagine, regards and 
represents every thing almost with coldness, — is found, ii 
we examine into the internal feelings of his spirit, to be ot 
all others the most deeply sorrowful and tragic. 

Shakespeare regarded the drama as entirely a thinof for 
ihe people, and at first treated it throughout as such. He 
took the popular comedy as he found it, and whatever en- 
largements and improvements he introduced into the stao;e, 
were all calculated and conceived according to the peculiar 
spirit of his predecessors and of the audience in London. 
Even in the earliest of his tragic attempts, he takes posses- 



288 SHAKESPEARE AND MILTON COMPARED. 

sion of the whole superstitions of the vulgar, and mingles in 
fiis poetry, not only the gigantic greatness of their rude tra- 
ditions, but also the fearful, the horrible, and the revolting. 
All these, again, are blended with such representations and 
views of human debasement as passed, or- still pass, with 
common spectators for wit, but were connected in the depths 
of his reflective and penetrating spirit, with the very diffe- 
rent feelings of bitter contempt or sorrowful sympathy. He 
was not, in knowledge, far less in art, such as, since the time 
of Milton, it has been usual to represent him. But I believe 
that the inmost feelings of his heart, the depths of his pe- 
culiar, concentrated, and solitary spirit, could be agitated 
only by the mournful voice of nature. The feeling by which 
he seems to have been most connected with ordinary men is 
that of nationality. He has represented the heroic and glo- 
rious period of English history, during the conquests in 
France, in a series of dramatic pieces, which possess all the 
simplicity and liveliness of the ancient chronicles, but ap- 
proach, in their ruling spirit of patriotism and glory, to the 
most dignified and effectual productions of the epic muse. 

In the works of Shakespeare a whole world is unfolded. 
He who has once comprehended this, and been penetrated 
with its spirit, will not easily allow the effect to be dimi- 
nished by the form, or listen to the cavils of those v/ho are 
incapable of understanding the import of -what they would 
criticize. The form of Shakespeare's writings will rather 
appear to him good and excellent, because in it his spirit is 
expressed and clothed, as it were, in a convenient garment. 
The poetry of Shakespeare is near of kin to the spirit of the 
Germans, and he is more felt and beloved by them than any 
other foreign, I had almost said, than any vernacular, poet. 
Even in England, the understanding of Shakespeare is ren- 
dered considerably more difBcult. in consequence of the re- 
semblance which many very inferior writers bear to him in 
those points, which come most immediately before the eye. 
In Germany, we admire Shakespeare, and are free from this 
disadvantage; but we should Deware of adopting either the 
form or the sentiment of this great poet's writings as the ex- 
clusive model of our own. They are indeed, in themselves, 
most highly poetical, but they are far from being the only 



OPPOSITION TO SHAKESPEARE. 289 

poetical ones, ^nd the dramatic art may attain perfection in 
many other ways besides the Shakespearian. 

The delightful chivalry of Spenser, and the freedom of the 
universal Shakespeare, were misunderstood, contemned, and 
even persecuted, after the spirit of fanaticism, which, in tho 
davs of Elizabeth and James, had existed only as a hidden 
disorder, burst forth at once in all its power and offensive- 
ness, in all its overwhelming and disgusting virulence, un- 
der Charles I. Shakespeare was, in a peculiar manner, an 
object of hatred to the Puritans, for whom he certainly seems 
to have had no partiality, exactly as he still is to their de- 
scendants, the Methodists, and other similar sects, which are 
at present so powerful in Britain. But, although the Puri- 
tans disliked Shakespeare, they were by no means without 
poetry ; on the contrary, in the bosom of their sect and age, 
there was produced a poet who must ever be classed with 
the first and most remarkable of his nation, and of the world. 
The poetry of the world and human nature was he]d as un- 
lawful among the bigots; the art which would express the 
image of that time, was obliged to be entirely directed to- 
wards spiritual concerns, as is the case with the ever-serious 
and stately muse of Milton. The Paradise Lost partakes in 
all those difficulties and defects, which, as I have already 
said, attend all Christian poems which attempt to make the 
mysteries of our relig-ion the subjects of their fiction. It is 
strange that Milton did not obser\'e, that the loss of Paradise 
forms in itself no complete whole, but is only the first act of 
the great Christian history of man, wherein the creation, the 
fall, and the redemption, are all equally necessary parts of 
one mighty drama. It is true that he sought afterwards to 
remove this main defect by the addition of the Paradise Re- 
gained, but this poem is too insignificant in its purpose and 
size to be worthy of forming the keystone to the great work. 
Wh m compared with the Catholic poets, Dante and Tasso, 
who were his models. Milton, as a Protestant, laboured un- 
der considerable disadvantages, by being entirely denied the 
use of a great many symbolical representations, histories, and 
traditions, which were in their hands the most graceful or- 
naments of Christian poetry. He was sensible of this, and 
attemptc?d to make amends for the defect, by adopting fables 
and allegories out of the Koran and the Talmud, such as are 

25 



290 TENDENCIES OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 

extremely unfit for the use of a serious Christian poet. The 
excellence of his epic work consists, therefore, not m the 
plan of the whole, so much as in particular beauties and 
passages, and in general in the perfection of the high lan- 
guage of poetry. The unusual admiration which Avas at- 
tracted to Milton in the eighteenth century, rested upon par- 
ticular traits and representations of paradisaic innocence and 
beauty, and upon the picture of hell, and the character of its 
inhabitants, whom this poet has depicted in a style great and 
almost antique, as giants of the abyss. Whether it has, upon 
the whole, been advantageous for the English language of 
poetry, that it has been leaning more to the Latin than to 
the Teutonic side, that it has followed Milton more than 
Spenser, — this is a point which I cannot help viewing as 
extremely doubtful. If such a leaning, however, was to 
take place, there is no question that Milton was the best 
model in that way, and in many respects well entitled to be 
himself the standard of the high and serious poetical lan- 
guage of England. But the truth is, that any exclusive 
standard is injurious in a language composed of opposite ele- 
ments as the English is ; for it is the very nature of such 
a language, if not to be perpetually vacillating between two 
extremes, yet certainly to retain the freedom of approxima- 
ting more nearly at different times to the two opposite boun- 
daries of its domain. The whole wealth of the English 
tongue, powerful as it is in this mixture, and the various 
modifications which that admits of, can only be appreciated 
by those who study it in Shakespeare. 

After the Puritan period had passed away, the English 
literature and language began to be infected with another 
species of barbarism ; the adoption of the then corrupted but 
predominant taste of the French. It was not till the full re- 
storation of political freedom took place, at the close of the 
seventeenth century, that intellect recovered from the op- 
pression under which it had lain. So deeply had the foreign 
taste taken root, that the eighteenth century had commenced 
before the old poets of the nation began to be as it were dis- 
covered, and brought into light out of oblivion. 

The French literature possessed, in the latest Burgundian 
times, under Francis I. and in the sixteenth century, a great 
abundance of those historical memoirs of which it has at all 



EARLY FRENCH LANGUAGE. 291 

times been so productive ; pictures after the life, which, by 
their exquisite representation of individuals, and by the im- 
mense number of traits, the immediate offspring of personal 
observation, have the effect of entirely transporting us back 
into the manners, society, and general spirit of the age de- 
picted. The peculiar talent for applying, in a tone of social 
intercourse, a species of light and sarcastic philosophy to the 
ordinary affairs of life, was in like manner very early deve- 
loped among the French. I need only allude to two greal 
masters in these two different walks of literature. Philip de 
Commines and Montaig-ne. The old French lang-uag-e is 
for the most part careless, inaccurate, and perplexed with in- 
tricate periods, but along with all these defects it possesses, 
in the hands of Montaigne, and some of the better writers of 
the old time, a certain naivete and natural tone of sentiment, 
which are the more charming, on account of the careh ss 
and unaffected style in which they are expressed. But that, 
upon the whole, the French language of the sixteenth cen- 
tury was extremely ill adapted, either for poetr}^ or wit — 
that it was altogether unworthy of being compared with the 
languages of the neighbouring countries — and gave little 
promise of the noble and tasteful perfection to which itself 
has since attained. — all this may easily be gathered from 
Marot and Rabelais, in spite of the high talents which both 
of these writers possess. If we take a general view of the 
neglected, uncultivated, and, in many respects, barbarous 
condition of the older French literature and language, we 
cannot fail to consider the changes introduced into both, by 
Cardinal Richelieu, and the academy of which he was the 
founder, as a very necessary and fortunate one. The lite- 
rary supremacy of the new academy was indeed, like the 
political sway of its head, a yoke of iron : its operations par- 
took of the celerity and decision of despotism. The regula- 
tion of language was its first attempt, and this certainly was 
very soon crowned with the most complete success. In prose 
this is universally to be seen ; not only the first and most 
celebrated writers, but we might almost say, all the writei s 
of the last part of the seventeenth century, are distinguishMl 
by a peculiar charm of noble style. We have only to re- 
flect on the immense number of lettei-^. memoirs, (even o 
wcmen.1 tracts of men of business, none of them ever intend 



292 AGE OF VOLTAIRE. 

ed for the press, and composed by persons who made no prC' 
tensions to the character of writers ; all these are remarkable 
for a peculiar and graceful taste, of which scarcely an}'- trace 
is to be discovered among the French authors of the succeed- 
ing age. Among the poets, I think that, at the same period, 
Racine attained, in language and versification, a point of har- 
monious perfection, even beyond what has been reached by 
Milton in English, or even Virgil in Latin, and very far 
superior to any thing Avhich has ever since been seen in 
France. With a view to the poetry itself, and even for its 
language, it is true there is much reason to wish that, along 
with this skilful perfection, a little more freedom had been 
left ; that the elder French poetry of the chivalrous period, 
which, as we have seen, produced not a little of beautiful 
and lovely, both in regard to language and invention, had 
not been so entirely and without exception thrown aside. It 
might have been quite possible to unite, as was done by the 
Italiens, and by some other nations, the perfection of a rich 
and earnest st^de with the poetical spirit of chivalry. The 
French language and poetry might then have preserved a 
great deal more of that romantic tendency and old poetical 
freedom which V'oltaire so often wished they could regain, 
and w^hich he himself attempted, although Avith very imper- 
fect success, to restore. Yet such a forgetting and total con- 
temning of all that has gone before is inseparable from. every 
great and entire change, even in literature. It was a revo- 
lution; asmight have been expected, much secret opposition 
at all times remained against the harsh sw^ay, and this be- 
came more and more apparent, when, in the days of the 
Regent and Lewis XV. the French learned to think, with 
even increasing earnestness, after the freedom of the English, 
not onty in civil affairs, but also in literature and in language. 
In consequence of the irregular, and in part ill-intentioned 
manner w^herein these inclinations were gratified, and the 
foreign modes introduced and rendered predominant, there 
arose, during the time of these princes, that corruption of 
taste which, having gradually attained its summit, broke cut 
into the wildest appearances of anarchy, even before the re- 
volution, and w^hich, like other rebels will, I fear, bp with 
great difficulty ever completely reconciled to the restoration 
cf the ancient obedience. 



REVIVAL OF FRENCH POETRY. 293 

The trae flourishing period of the French poetry was the 
latter hajf of the sixteenth century. Ronsard, in the sixteenth 
century, was only the remote forerunner of the great poets of 
the age of Lewis XIV. ; Voltaire, in the eighteenth, was only 
their ingenious follower, who attempted, with sometimes 
great, and sometimes very indifferent success, to supply what 
he conceired to be the chief defects of the poets of his own time 
The true defect which presses most severely on the French 
poetry is this, that the cultivation of the more artificial species 
was not preceded by any truly classical, successful, and nation- 
al epic poem. Ronsard, indeed, attempted this, nor is he with- 
out fire and energy, but his style is full of false bombast; as 
it often happens that when any one attempts to make a sud- 
den escape from barbarous rudeness, he is very apt to fall 
into the opposite defect of far-sought, pedantic, and artificial 
expression. Of all the poets, even including those of Italy, 
who have corrupted their language by desiring to make it 
too much like that of antiquity, the defect is most visible in 
the Avritings of Ronsard. Ev^en the choice of the subject in 
his Franciade, must be considered as extremely unhappy. 
Had a French poet chosen some part of the ancient national 
history to be the groundwork of an epic poem, he might 
have been excused for introducing, by way of episode, the 
fable which traces the Franks from the heroes of Troy — an 
absurd fable to be sure, but one which was very commonly 
believed among the knights and minstrels of the middle ages. 
But it was certainly an unfortunate idea to think of making 
such a foolish legend the very basis of the epopee. The 
achievements and fortunes of St. Lewis might in many re- 
spects, have appeared the best subject of an epic poem for a poet 
of old France ; for they stand in the most intimate connection 
with the whole world of romance, and in the midst of all the 
seriousness of historic truth, and the associations of patriotism 
and piety, connected with the adventures of a sainted hero, 
present to the fancy as wide a range as could have been pro- 
duced by the most perfect rejection of every thing either true 
or natural. The only difficulty was that presented by the 
ill-fated termination of the crusade of St. Lewis. In the 
story of the Maid of Orleans, w^hich was selected by Chape- 
lam, the difficuky consisted in this, that the heroine who de- 
livered France, was betrayed into the hands of her enemies, 
25* 



294 PROGRESS OF THE FRENCH DRAMA. 

and abandoned to a shameful death by the hands of her own 
countrymen, who had, in the former part of her life, deified 
and adored her. The same thing which has often happened 
in the history of French heroes, occurred in literature to 
Ronsard. He was praised beyond all bounds in his own 
lifetime, and exalted to the very heavens; immediately after- 
wards he fell to the dust, and past into the most perfect obli- 
vion. But the name of Ronsard is still one which must not 
be omitted in the history of literary France ; for it is unde- 
niable that the great Corneille, the friend and admirer oi 
Chapelain, had formed himself in the elder school of Ron- 
sard, or at least reminds us, every now and then, of the pe- 
culiarities of his diction. 

The tragedy of the French is considered by themselves 
as the most brilliant part of their literature, and as such has 
ever attracted the chief attention of other nations. Their 
tragedy expresses so abundantly their national character and 
mode of feeling, that there is no difficulty in conceiving why 
they should have come to think so highly of it, even al- 
though the subjects of its earlier productions are almost 
never taken from their own national history. It is not in- 
deed to be denied, that all these Greeks, Romans, Spaniards, 
and Turks, whom it represents to us, are Frenchmen in 
many things besides their language ; yet it is certainly unfor- 
tunate that the French tragedy has remained almost entirely 
foreign, and very rarely represented French heroes. The 
circumstance is probably to be explained by the want of 
any successful and universally known French epic poem 
Besides, the most tragical incidents in the old French his- 
tory could not fail to excite disagreeable recollections and 
comparisons, ill adapted for the purposes of a stage entirely 
dependent upon the court. It was the great defect in French 
literature, that an authoritative tone of appeal to the national 
feeling was kept up by no one species of serious poetry — 
above all, that this was utterly lost sight of by their first 
tragedians. The defect was well understood by Voltaire, 
and he attempted to remedy the evil by choosing subjects 
out of the old French history, and more generally by intro- 
ducing the feelings and manners of the chivalrous period 
upon the stage. The national feelings which he endeavour 
ed to excite, did not begin to display themselves till conside 



FRENCH TRAGEDY. 295 

rably after ; but the glory is indisputably his, of having suc- 
ceeded, in romantic tragedy, beyond any other of his coun- 
trymen. 

Although, however, the subjects of French tragedy are, 
with a few exceptions, foreign, yet this whole department of 
their literature is, without doubt, in the highest degree ex- 
pressive of the peculiar turn and feeling of the French spirit 
and character. I therefore gladly recognize in it a species 
of poetry highly perfect in its execution, and thoroughly na- 
tional in its tendency ; but the more natural it is, the less is 
it adapted to be the standard and model of any other theatre. 
It is the duty of every natron to be the inventors and crea- 
tors of their own drama. 

The form of the French tragedy is regarded by most as a 
mere imitation of the Greek, and judged of by th[ ■ standard ; 
but it ought to be recollected that the great marers of the 
French stage were themselves the first who suggc ; ted the fact 
to us, and pointed this out in their prefaces, as the j ; oper point 
of view from which their productions should be contemplated. 
Racine appears in this respect to the greatest advantage ; he 
speaks with a true and lively knowledge of the Greeks, 
which we should in vain seek for in any other of the French 
writers ; and if his judgment be not always satisfactory to 
us, (for the Greeks have been much more accurately studied 
since his time than before it,) we can yet recognize, in ail 
that he says, a feeling of the excellence of their art and 
poetry, which none but great poets, such as Racine himself 
was, are capable of possessing. Corneille, in his prefaces, 
is always battling with Aristotle and his commentators, 
who are indeed very often much in his way, till at the close 
we find him ratifying either a total capitulation or a hollow 
truce with those fatal enemies of all poetical freedom. Wt 
cannot avoid being surprised at the humility with which 
this mighty genius seems to submit himself to fetters so con- 
fining, and so entirely self-imposed. The prefaces and dis- 
sertations of Voltaire always open with the same assertions, 
namely, that the French nation, and, if possible, still more 
the French stage, is the first in the world, and that neverthe- 
less Corneille and Racine, with all their excellencies, have 
left very much to be done. The reader is commonly lefl 
in a situation which enables him very easily to discover whc 



296 PECUI.IARITIES OF IRENCH POETRY. 

IS, m Voltaire's opinion, the great genius destined to supply 
all these defects, and to surpass Corneille and Racine as 
much as they do the tragedians of foreign nations. 

That the form of the Grecian tragedy, and the celebrated 
treatise of Aristotle, (as it is understood by them.) have in 
many respects confined and injured the French poets — that 
a great part of the law of the three unities, more particularly 
of those of time and place, is absurd, and in total opposition 
to the true nature of poetry, in which we do not consider 
physical possibility with arithmetical exactness, but rather 
judge according to the effect produced on the imagination 
by a verisimilitude not historical but poetical, — all this has 
been so frequently handled since the time of Lessing, that 
it is needless to revive a contest which has been so often 
fought with the same issue. There is only one observation 
which I shall make, and that is of the historical kind; of ah 
the French writers, the one who did most to establish the 
enslaving influence of the mistaken Greek models and cri- 
tics, was Boileau. How hurtful the effects of his precepts 
must have been on the French poetry, may be gathered 
from the one fact, that he treats Corneille with almost the 
same severity as Chapelain. What gives the most perfect 
idea of the man is, to my view, that well kno^\Ti maxim of 
his, "of a rhyming couplet the last verse should, if possible, 
be first made." Instead of the true judgment and feeling of 
art, in his owti criticism, he is fond of a species of ridicule 
which is in general by no means the most delicate : and in- 
stead of poetry, he is most anxious for a full and perfect 
rhyme. I perfectly agree with the opinion of Racine, who 
wrote in these terms to his son, concerning his friend Boi- 
leau, " Boileau is an excellent man, but at bottom he knows 
absolutely nothing about poetry." 

Another great rule of this critic is the one borrowed from 
Horace, according to which a work of intellect should be 
as many years before it is published, as a human child lies 
months in the womb before it is born. In spite, however, 
of axL the authority of Boileau, there is no doubt that the 
Athalie of Racine, and the Cid of Corneille, which I must 
always hoxd to be the two most glorious productions of 
French poetry, were neither of them subjected to any such 
process of tedious elaboration, but both brought at once be- 



CORNEILLE, RACINE. VOLTAIRE. 297 

fore the world in the inspiration and glow of their first con 
ceplion. These tw^o creations, the finest of which the 
French stage can boast, ma}^ best inform us what height 
that stage has reached, and at what point it has been obliged 
to stop in its imitation of the nobler drama of the Greeks. 

How^ever little the modern expounders of Aristotle may 
be aware of its consequences, the fact itself is sufficiently 
certain, that the lyrical songs form the essential part in the 
tragedy of the ancients ; that the dialogue is a mere appen- 
dix and interlude to the chorus, not the chorus to the dia- 
logue ; and that he who would imitate this species of writ- 
ing with success, must be at least as much a lyrical as a 
dramatic poet. The Cid of CorneiJle is intensely lyrical, 
and the tone of this inspiration alone gives it that magical 
power, against which .envy and criticism are of no avail. 
Racine, in his Athalie, has restored the chorus of antiquity, 
with many alterations no doubt, but in a manner which 
seems to me exquisitely adapted for the purposes which he 
had in view. Had the French tragedy advanced farther 
in the path pointed out by its two greatest masters in their 
two most excellent productions, I have no doubt it might 
have approached, much more nearly than it has done, to thy 
power and dignity of the antique ; many of the narrow fet- 
ters, imposed by mere prosaic misunderstanding, would of 
themselves have dropt away, and the genius of the drama, 
being more at liberty, would certainly have attempted 
achievements of higher ambition than any to which it has 
as yet aspired. 

The universal custom of striking out the lyrical part of 
the ancient tragedy, was productive of a very^ great 'incon- 
venience ; more particularly when the subject of the drama, 
happened to be one of those same mythological legends 
which had of old been handled by the_ijxeek5. When the 
lyrical part is taken away, the plot was found to be too little 
to fill up the tragedy, and recourse was had to the same 
means of supplying the vacant space, which had been adopt- 
ed by the ancients themselves when their drama was on its 
d( cline. The plot wasjhickened by a crowd of interpolated 
intrigues extremely hurtfuTto the purpose and dignity ol 
tragedy, or else the whole was filled up with that rhetoric 
of the passions, which every tragical subject affords such 



298 RHETORIC Ok FRENCH PLAYS 

easy means of introducing. In one point of view tiiis last 
expedient has been of great advantage to the French tragedy, 
it has lent to it a^trenglh which it wants in all other re- 
spects, and enabled it to express, with great effect, the cha- 
racter and spirit of a nation, among whom, in all their rela- 
tions, rhetoric has always exerted the greatest influence — 
whose private life itself is filled in a great measure with this 
very rhetoric of the passions. Besides, a certain measure 
of this rhetoric is a necessary and indispensable element of 
all dramatic representation. The thing is, no doubt, over- 
done in the French tragedy; but its preponderance there is 
founded upon ^national feeling, and any attempt to imitate 
the peculiarity would be quite absurd among any foreign 
people — more particularly among those who have greater 
feeling for poetry, than natural talent for rhetoric. 

The partiality of the French for this rhetorical part of 
their tragedy is so great, that the decision of the audience is 
founded much more upon the oratory of the individual 
speeches, than the dramatic connection and effect of the 
whole piece. But if we attend to those parts of their drama 
of which they themselves are in general negligent, and study 
in particular those plays which have a true and poetical de- 
nouement of the kind which I have above described, we shall 
find that, even in this respect, the French tragedy is the 
child of the antique ; that its termination is in general one 
of complete destruction, or that, if there be any softening, the 
sorrow still continues to be by far the predominant material. 
There are indeed a few delightful exceptions. In his_Atha- 
lie, Racine shows himself to be a Christian poet, and brings 
victor)** out of the conflict ; and in the Alzire. in like man- 
ner, death and suffering are represented as the avenues of 
eternal life and blessedness. This last play is the master- 
piece of Voltaire ; in it he appears indeed worthy of his two 
illustrious predecessors. 



LECTURE XIII. 



PinLOSOPHY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY BACON, HUGO GROTIUS, DES- 
CARTES, BOSSUET, PASCAL CHANGE IN THE MODE OF THINKING SPIRIT 

OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY PICTURE OF THE ATHEISM AND REVO- 

LUTIONARY SPIRIT OF THE FRENCH. 



The seventeenth century Avas rich in distinguished writers 
not only in elegant literature, poetry, and eloquence, but 
also in the sciences and in philosophy. The philosophy 
and system of thinking which belonged to the eighteenth 
century, which during that period extended themselv^es over 
all the departments of literature, and even acquired a most 
determinate influence over the fate of men and of nations, — 
these were not without their precursors in the age immedi- 
diately preceding: although it is true that the first founders 
and establishers of the new doctrines soon ceased to attract 
much attention, after their labours were surmounted by the 
more imposing structures of their successors. It is abso- 
lutely necessary, however, to take into view Bacon, Des- 
cartes, Locke, and some other of the heroes of the seventeenth 
century, before we can rightly depict or understand the true 
nature of those intellectual and moral changes which were 
introduced by Voltaire and Rousseau, not only into France, 
but into all Europe, and in general into the whole spirit ol 
the eighteenth century. 

The^ixteenth century was the age of ferment and strife. 
and it was only towards its close that the human mind began 
to calm and collect itself after the violent convulsion it had 
undergone. With the seventeenth'century commenced that 
new mode of reflection and inquiry to which the way had 
been laid open by the restoration of classical learning, the 
great improvement in natural science, and that universal 
shaking and separation of faith occasioned by the reforma- 
tion of Luther. The first name to which we turn is that of 



300 PHILOSOPHY OF THE SEVEMEENTH CENTUR-y. 

the great Bacon. This mighty genius, by carrying the 
spirit of inquiry out of thejyerbal contentions of the Jfad 
schools, into the regions of experience, above all of life and 
nature, has become the father of modern physics : he made 
and completed many illustrious discoveries himself, of many 
more he seems to have had a dim and imperfect foresight ; 
it is the work of ages to follov/ out the hints which are 
dropped by such a spirit in the progress of its excursions. 
By means of his rich and indefatigable intellect, the w^hole 
sciences of experience have been immeasurabl}^ enlarged, or 
rather they have been entirely regenerated: the common 
shape of mind, nay, we may say, the common shape of life, 
in modern Europe, has received a spark of new animation 
from the inspiring touch'of this Prometheus. The danger- 
ous consequences produced by the injudicious extension of 
his principles, at the time w^hen his followers and admirers 
in the eighteenth century thought they could derive more 
than he had ever dreamed of, from experience and the senses, 
— the laAvs of life and commerce, and the just notion of faith 
and hope, — and threw away from them, as mysticism, what- 
ever cannot be proved by the common experience of sense : 
these, indeed, were alarming and reprehensible, but they 
cannot be with justice ascribed to the spirit of Bacon. I 
need only recall to your recollection one celebrated saying 
of his, w^hich has by no means become obsolete, that philo- 
sophy, when studied superficially, leads to unbelief and athe- 
ism, but when profoundly understood is sure to produce 
veneration for God, and to render faith in him the ruling 
principle of our life.^ Not only in religion, but even in 
natural science, this great man believed in many things 
which have been despised as mere superstitions by his fol- 
lowers and admirers in later times. It is not easy to sup- 
pose that he w^as influenced in regard to these matters by 
the mere faith of custom, and some not yet overcome attach- 
ment to the common prejudices of his day. For in truth 
his expressions concerning the world above the senses, bear 
as much as any part of his waitings, the clear impress of his 
penetrative and peculiar spirit. He was a man who had as 
jpuch feeling as invention, and although the world of ex])e- 
rience had revealed itself to him in altogether a new^ light, 
the higher and divine region of the spiritual world, which 



PHILOSOPHY OF BACON. 301 

is siiualed far above common experience and sense, was not 
viewed by him either obscurely or remotely. How little 
he himself partook, I will not say in the rude materialism 
of his followers, but even in that spiritual deification of na 
ture which became fashionable in France, and, though in a 
lesser degree, in Germany, during the eighteenth century, 
this may be abundantly proved by a simple maxim which 
he has uttered respecting the proper essence of true and phi- 
losophical inquiry in physics. In the natural philosophy of 
the ancients, says he, there is this to blame, that they held/ 
nature to be an image of the Godhead : for, according to 
truth, with which also the Christian doctrine has no vari- 
ance, man alone is a type and image of God, while nature 
is no glass, likeness, or similitude of him, but only the work 
of his hands. By the natural philosophy of the ancients, it 
is sufficiently evident from the extensive form of Bacon's ar- 
gument, that he here meant to designate not any one parti- 
cular s^^stem . but in general every thing most good and 
excellent in the opinions of the ancients concerning na- 
tural philosophy — a term under which it is besides more 
than probable that he comprehended not physical science 
alone, but mythology and natural religion. When Bacon, 
according to the doctrine of the Scriptures, asserts that it is 
the privilege of man alone to be an image of the Deity, we 
are not to understand that he had ascribed to man this high 
and peculiar excellence, merely as being the most glorious 
and complex of all natural productions: he took the lan- 
guage of the Bible in its literal sense, and believed this re- 
semblance and image to be the gift of God's love and inspi- 
ration. In the figurative expression, that nature is no mir- 
ror or image of God, but only the work of his hand, there 
may be found, if we understand it in its true profoundness of 
meaning, a perfect statement of the true relation between the 
world subject and the world superior to the senses, — between 
God and nature. It expresses that nature is not self-origin- 
ating or self-existent, but a production cf the divine will for 
a particular purpose. We may obtain from this short and 
simple maxim respectmg the natural philosophy of the an- 
cients, and that of the Christian Scriptures, and of Bacon, a 
clear and intelligible guide to point out the right path be- 
tween the dangers of impious veneration for nature on the 

26 



302 BACON AND HUGO GROTIUS. 

one hand ; and on the other, of that dark aversion for nature 
into which confined and partial reason too often falls, when, 
directing- itself entirely to_morality:^ it can neither understand 
external nature, nor the Deity who is alike predomincirit 
over the natural and the moral world. The proper distinc- 
tion and relation between nature and Deity, is the letding 
principle not only of all thought and belief, but of human 
life and intercourse. This circumstance, and the saying of 
Bacon, which embraces the result of all his reflections con- 
cerning nature, are the more worthy of our attention, be- 
cause, even in our own time, philosophy is still, for the most 
part, divided between these two extremes ; the one that cul- 
pable deification of nature, which distinguishes not between 
the Creator and his works — God and the world ; the other, 
the hatred and blindness of those despisers of nature, whose 
reason is too exclusively egotistical in its direction. The 
right middle-path between these two opposite errois, or the 
true recognition of nature, finds its expression in the feeling 
which we have of our own internal connection with nature, 
as well as of our superiority over it, and in that peculiar 
reverence and admiration with which we regard all those 
parts of nature that have in them something of a higher and 
different character — all of lovely or of lawful, which reveals 
^ to us, in a more striking manner, the traces of a fashioning 
hand and a superintending intellect. 

The influence exerted during the seventeenth and a great 
part of the eighteenth centuries over philosophy and uni- 
versal thought by Lord Bacon, was not more considerable 
than that of Hugo Grotius over the practical and political 
world, and the general -:ethk_s_ of international intercourse. 
And in truth this influence was a happy and wholesome 
one ; for as, after the dissolution of that religious bond which 
formerly united the western nations in one political system, 
the universal and impious statemanship of Machiavel had 
always been becoming more and more the favourite rule of 
conduct, surely no greater service could be rendered to hu- 
manity, than giving to self-destroying Europe, an universal 
and composing law for all her nations — unhappily so much 
divided in faith, so much inflamed in passions, and so much 
corrupted by the prevalence of a doctrine alike abounding 
in sophistry and vice. Hugo Grotius was universally ac- 



WRITINGS OF GROTIUS. 303 

knowledge d to have accomplished this noble purpose. It 
is an elevating thought that a mere man of letters, a philo- 
sopher, having no power except that of his own intelligence 
and eloquence, should have been the unassisted founder of 
such a system of national law : as he gained by his exertions 
ihe veneration of his contemporaries, so he is no less enti- 
tled to the grrlitude and admiration of posterity. If we con- 
sider it as aj};;stem, the national law founded and introduced 
by Hugo Grotius and his followers may appear indeed ex- 
tremely_defe_ctij^e, and be sufficiently open to the cavils of a 
sceptic. The religious bond of the elder political union 
was an irremediable loss. In the absence of this the doc- 
tiine of right was now to be founded entirely upon the in- 
nate and necessary ideas of men respecting their own social 
place and destination: The more entirely the universal 
ii.orality was grounded by Grotius and his follo\A ers on na- 
ture and reason, and conducted according to the capabilities 
of these imperfect guides, the more did the first great foun- 
tain of all morahty come to be neglected; and the more un- 
avoidably did it happen that both the theory and practice of 
national law lost themselves in a multitude of useless, and, 
m part at least, inextricable difficulties and niceties, on the 
one side and on the other, in a set of conclusions which were 
no less dangerous than extravagant. It is indeed difficult 
to compute how much evil, both in opinion and in action, 
•\A as produced by the doctrines of __natur.al right, and the 
statesmanship of reason, in the last half of the eighteenth 
century. Yet it must always remain a great benefit, that 
through the doctrine of international law, extended and re- 
cognized by means of Grotius, a mighty bulwark was pla- 
ced before the encroaching stream of corruption far at least 
one full century. From J648 to ][740 there is no doubt 
that many evident and great outrages against international 
justice were committed, but they were all exclaimicd against ; 
and it was much that power and ambition were thus sub- 
jtcted to some constraint, and compelled to observe at least 
the appearance of rectitude. Even from 1740 to 1772 these 
beneficial effects were still displayed ; and although certainly 
in a less degree, perhaps even in the more stormy and tu- 
multuous period which succeeded. Now, indeed, the na- 
tions of Europe have undergone a second g-reat convulsion, 



304 INFLUENCE OF GROT US. 

and as peoples and states have been so much changed, it is 
no wonder that the old rules and forms, by which their in- 
tercourse was regulated, should have passed away. 

Of all the writers who have produced a great and univer- 
sal effect on the tactical world, and the political relations 
of gurope^the imTiierice of Grotius has certainly been the 
most salutary. In regard to the importance of his works, 
he can only be compared with Machiavel before, and RoR.?: 
seau after him. 

In addition to his labours for the restoration and recogni- 
tion of justice and its theory, the active intellect of Grotius" 
was also exerted in the attempt to set forth thejruth of reli- 
gion in a formal, and, so to speak, in ^rational manner. It 
was one of the indirect effects of Protestanism that religion 
came to be perpetually looked upon as a subject of conten- 
tion, and consequently to be treated as a matter of reason — ■ 
an error which formed besides a part of the original spirit 
and system of the second great leader of the reformation, ■ 
Cilvin. Grotius has had many followers in an attempt of 
which the audacity seems every day more remarkable, al- 
though there can be no reason to doubt the excellence of 
his motives. In itself I must consider it as a sure token of 
declining religion, that what is by nature a matter of the 
most internal feeling and lively faith, should be embraced 
as a business of mere reason, and considered as the fit sub- 
ject of learned controversy — that the truth of religion should 
be handled like a process of civil law, or Avhat is still worse, 
as Pascal would have desired to see it, like the solution of a 
reofular problem in geometry. 

I cannot bring myself to look upon the philosophical la 
hours of DescartPS as equally important with those of these 
two great men; his influence upon his own age, and the 
following one, was rather danoferous and productive of error, 
than salutary. ^"^^ truly vivifying. In general, Descartes 
appears to me a perfect proof that a man may be, at least as 
the exact sciences have as yet been cultivated, a great ma- 
thematician, (which he certainly was for his age,) without 
being on that account the more successful in philosophy. It 
is true, that those hypotheses, from which Descaites at- 
tempted to explain not only all the separate facts in physics, 
but even the origin of the universe, have been long forgot- 



THE SYSTEM OF DESCARTES. 305 

ten. His system possessed only for a very short time its 
supremacy, and was, in fact, never very much extended out 
i)f France. Yet his strange hypothesis of the cortices was 
not without a considerable and even abiding effect upon the 
spirit of the seventeenth, and through that of the eighteenth 
century. Above all, his method, as he calls it, or the mode 
in which he began to philosophize, has found many imita- 
tors. It was the great object of his desire to be throughout 
an original thinker in the strictest and most' perfect sense of 
the word. For this purpose he resolved to forget, once for 
all, every ihing he had before known, thought, or believed, 
and to begm entirely anew. Of course all the philosophers 
and inquirers of preceding ages were entirely neglected, and 
their labours overlooked as matters unworthy of notice by 
this original reflector. Were it possible at pleasure to throw 
entirely and effectually aside the thread of inherited thought, 
(by which we are, in spite of ourselves, inseparably con- 
nected through language.) the consequences of this could be 
no other than destruction. The case would be exactly as 
if some innovator in the political world should dream hnn- 
self capable of stopping the great wheel of public life, and 
of substituting in place of that complicated machinery, 
which a nation has formed for itself in the progress and 
struggle of ages, some simpler, and, as he thinks, better in- 
vention of his own devising, — a constitution springing fresh 
and pure from his own unassisted reason. The absurdity of 
any attempt to attain either philosophical truth or political 
fauklessness by such contempt and oblivion of the past, has 
been demonstrated by many unhappy examples in the his- 
tory both of nations and of Ikerature. The most natural 
consequence of all such attempts is, that the inquirer neither 
sees nor avoids those first and usual errors into vvhich hu- 
man reason is most apt to fall, when it attempts to discover 
truth entirely by its own power; errors are thus needlessly 
revived, and even held up as great discoveries, which have 
already been often corrected or confuted. As for the total 
oblivion of all that has gone before us, that, as I have said 
aboVe, is an impossibility ; so impossible is it to erect any 
fabric of perfect and independent originality in philosophy, 
that Descartes is by no means the only one of these self- 
satisfied philosophers, whose most boasted- and original 

26* 



806 HIS VAIN ATTEMPT, ETC. 

opinions turn out, after all, to be mere new versions of what 
had been often said, in different words, by their predecessors. 
The borrowing is indeed unintentional, but it is produced by 
a mixture of imperfect self-deception, and obscured, but not 
extinguished, reminiscence. It is usually supposed to have 
been a great merit of Descartes, that he dreAv so perfecXJL 
line between spirit and matter. It must, however, appear un- 
questionably somewhat strange and surprising, that it should 
have been looked on as something so new and original to 
make a distinction betv/een intellect and body : but, in truth, 
the mode in which Descartes made his distinction was so 
unsatisfactory and merely mathematical, that no good re- 
sulted from it, and the whole thoughts of those who adopted 
it were lost in inextricable difficulties, in the attempt to ex- 
plain the connection between soul and body, and their mu- 
tual influences upon each other. ^Philosophy continued, 
after the time of Descartes, to vacillate between the principle 
of personal consciousness, and the world of the senses, — one " 
set of inquirers vainly endeavouring to explain everything 
on the former ; and another still more absurdly, to deduce 
from the experience of the latter even those doctrines of 
morality and theology with which it has not the smallest 
connection. In every case the true relation between the soul 
and the senses remained entirely incomprehensible, so long 
as men had lost all sight of that higher and godlike region 
upon which both depend, and from whose light both must 
first be illuminated and explained. We often hear Descartes 
praised for the mathematical precision with which he has, 
from reason alone, described the being of God. If this be a 
merit, in my opinion, it does not belong to him : it was an 
idea borrowed from those elder philosophers of the middle 
age, who were treated with so much contempt by Descartes 
and his age. It is true, that they considered the matter in a 
point of view quite different from that of Descartes and the 
period following their own. To the highest of all truths, of 
which, in a way peculiar to itself, we have also the most 
firm and fearless knowledge, and which forms, in fact, the 
animating spirit and central point of all other thoughts 'and 
impressions, even of all the active purposes and views of 
life, — to this truth these old philosophers attempted, with 
modesty and perseverance, to add the additional and far m- 



THE DISCIPLES OF DESt^AR '"ES. 307 

ferior arguments of reason. As every creature, or being in 
nature, makes known involuntarily, in one way or another, 
the inscrutable greatness of its Creator, so may also the hu- 
man reason, otherwise so vain of itself, and its own powers, 
be permitted to join the general chorus which does hcmour 
to the Deity. As in human affairs it is always looked upon 
IS the highest triumph of a good and right cause, when even 
*ts enemies and opponents are compelled to bear unwilling 
witness to its truth and excellence, so also may the reason of 
man be admitted to furnish evidence of divine truth. But if 
we attempt, after the manner of Descartes, to explain exclu- 
sively or chiefly from reason the being of God, which we 
must learn to comprehend from the suggestions of very dif- 
ferent authority, we are, in fact, degrading God to a depend- 
ence upon reason, or at least to a companionship and equality 
with it. There never has been, nor ever can be, any suc- 
cessful attempt, after men have lost their respect for that 
other and higher authority, to demonstrate the existence of 
God to those who neither feel nor believe it. 

The followers and disciples of Descartes founded a new 
sect in France, which, for a short time, maintained its su- 
premacy. Yet there were not a few who, remaining inde- 
pendent, and even preserving their religious principles, em- 
braced, nevertheless, as much of the Cartesian system as they 
imagined they could reconcile w4th their belief. This was, 
in many respects, the case with Mahibranche, although he 
indeed was never able completely to get rid of those difficul- 
ties which Descartes had seen concerning the connection be- 
tween thought and its external objects, between spirit and 
matter. .Haet acquired great fame as an opponent of Des- 
cartes, and a critic_al, acute, and philosophical defender of 
Xfi3Z£lalioa; while, at the same time, 'J^nelon, without par- 
taking, in any degree, of the peculiar philosophical and 
metaphysical contentions of his day, wrote, in the most ex- 
quisite language, from no inspiration but that of his own 
^miable and Christian feelings. But religion owed her pre- 
servation much more to another distinguished Frenchman, 
whose name I have, as yet. purposely forborne to mention, — 
this is.Bos&uet, a writer who, so far as eloquence and lan- 
guage are concerned, has always been considered as one of 
thf^ firs^ which his countrj?- has produced. It may, indeed. 



308 IHE GENIUS OF BOSSUET. 

be matter of some doubt, whether the splendour of such elo- 
quence as his be altogether an appropriate vehicle for the 
truths of religion, whether the simplicity of our faith do not 
better accord with a more artless and unlaboured style of 
composition. But even if this should be so in the general, 
there can be no question, that at that particular period, as in 
every other period when religion is a matter of contest, and 
truth not entirely triumphant, a preacher, such as he was, 
possessed at once of the clearest and most comprehensive un- 
derstanding, and of the most vigorous eloquence, must have 
been an acquisition of the highest importance to the cause he 
had undertaken to defend. Besides, we must recollect, that 
the eloquence of Bossuet was by no means confined to sub- 
jects, strictly speaking, theological: for whatever in life and 
in morality, in church and state, in politics and history, and 
in general, whatever in human affairs is calculated to lead 
the mind to serious reflection, was always regarded by this 
great man in a religious point of view, and considered as a 
fit subject of the eloquence of the pulpit. 

If it may be permitted to compare an orator, so far as his 
language and composition are concerned, with poets, I think 
there is something in Bossuet which places him on a higher 
level than any of the poets which were his contemporaries. 
The perfection of style is enclosed in a very narrow sphere, 

I between two extremes, that of the lofty and sublime, and the 
merely artificial; its charm consists in the mingling of these 

I two elements There is nothing more rare or difficult than 
to preserve this medium. On the one side there are many 
poets who are both great and sublime, but in whom there is 
a want of refinement, perfection, or, in general, of harmony. 
Others in their anxiety to be polished lean too much to the 
side of effeminacy and delicacy; they are noble and elegant, 
but not great ; they want the strength which is necessary to 
constitute the sublime. Voltaire seems to have been Avell 
aware of this from the mode in which he criticises the two 
great tragedians, his predecessors, whom it was the highest 
ambition of his life to surpass. It was no difficult matter 
for him to detect, in Corneille, individual passages, wherein 
the language appears obsolete, rude, or even corrupt and 
bombast. But it seems to me. that he had a higher reve- 
rence for the genius of this poet than for that of his rival 



RACINE AND BOSSUET COMPARED. 309 

perhaps as bearing some resemblance to himself; and thai 
he hoped, by his own fire and energ}^ in passion, to surpass 
Racine, whom he held to be deficient in_po\ver and..elevation. 
But, in truth, I apprehend that his opinion of Racine was 
not. upon the whole, a correct one ; if we look only to the 
_ijictoiucj)f passion, among the crowd of French tragedit s, 
which have made that the chief object of their ambition, 
we shall, with difficulty, find any one which can susta'n 
a comparison with the JPhedre. The Athalie is animati d 
Anth the force of another and yet higher mspiration. If in 
many of his other plays, as, for example, in Bere?iice, the 
chief excellence appears to consist in a harmonious repose of 
representation, and exquisite delicacy of characterizing; this 
was rendered necessary by the nature of the fable. Yet this 
much may be easily conceded to Voltaire, that Racine would 
have been a greater arid more perfect poet, had he united to 
the harmonious faultlessness of language and versification 
which he possessed, to that noble and graceful style which 
forms his peculiar beauty, here and there, somewhat more of 
that impetuous sublimity Avhich often loses a great part of its 
effect on account of the profuseness with which it is lavished 
among the scenes of Corneille. So far as language and re- 
presentation are concerned, and so far as an orator can be 
classed with poets, I think that this union of excellencies was 
possessed by Bossuet. With the strictest purity and refine- 
ment, with a style, the noble elegance of w^hich has never 
been surpassed, he is master, whenever his subject requires 
it. of a greatness and sublimity which he never suffers to 
swell into the bombast. I am happy to agree with the most 
severe of the French critics in the judgment which they have 
formed respecting the high excellence of this man and his 
writings ; and the more so. because they are not only exam- 
ples of perfect style and expression, but also rich fountains 
of the most sublime and salutary truths. 

There is yet another point in which the excellence of 
Bossuet as a writer and orator, even above the great poets 
of his age and nation, is sufficiently conspicuous. The 
French literature is. in many essential circumstances, fash- 
ioned after the model of the earlier refined nations of anti- 
quity : it is in part grounded on this imitation, in the same 
manner that the Roman literature was upon the imitation of 



310 FRENCH AND ROMAN LITERATURE COMPARED. 



the Greek. This in itself is no reproach, and, in a certain 
degree, indeed, is necessary with the literature of every na- 
tion whose refinement has a date subsequent to that of others, 
and more particularly whose spirit, like that of the Romans 
and the French, has been more directed to the external and 
practical life, than to the internal activity of intellect. It 
would be absurd to class the literature of the Romans, in re- 
gard to inventiveness of spirit, with that of the Greeks ; but 
I have endeavoured to shew how, notwithstanding its great 
inferiority in poetry and philosophy, the Roman feeling and 
idea of Rome, predominant in all its works and writers, 
have been sufficient to give it a character and excellence of 
its own. The same effect was produced on Bossuet by the 
religion which animated him, for his religion was no mere 
faith of custom, but the spirit of his life, and, as it were, a 
second nature, by which he \vas enabled to see and compre- 
hend more clearly all the mysteries of the first. For this 
reason it is, that he preserves all the independence of an ori- 
ginal writer, and is the equal and rival, rather than the fol- 
lower, of those ancients who were both his models in style, 
and the fountains of his learning and opinions. What the 
idea of their country and of the greatness of Rome was to 
the Romans, and what this idea gave to them even as writers, 
Christianity was, and 'gave, in a much higher degree, to 
Catholic France, during the period when the spirit of Bos- 
suet was the ruling one. Religion was the free part of the 
soul, which enabled it to maintain itself unsubdued by the 
encroaching influences of the antique. So far, however, 
was this from being commonly the case, that the best poet 
which France at that time possessed, who was also the most 
religious, stopped short in his career, before he had reached 
the point of perfection which he certainly might have attain- 
ed, in consequence of the collision which took place between 
his ideas of Christianity, and his too exclusively antique no- 
tions in regard to the dramatic, art. It is well known that 
Racine, after he had become completely penetrated with the 
opinions of the Jansenists, adopted ideas of absurd strictness 
respecting his own art, and even (Resisted from writing for 
<he theatre. This excess of moral scrupulousness in the 
great poet, cannot fail to impress us with an amiable notion 
of the man, and that is indeed sufficiently confirmed by all 



THE WRITINGS OF PASCAL. 311 

that we know of bis private history, nrA by Ihe scope and 
tenor of his letters. And if it be true that he judged too 
severely of the .capabilities of the theatre, it is unquestionably 
quite as true, that in the dramatic art and representation of 
bis time, there were many things not very easily reconcile- 
uble with the doctrines and morality of the Bible. There 
was always a w^ant of harmony between Chriiiian sentiments 
and the vehicle in which they w^ere convevca. Upon the 
whole, there is the greatest reason to regret that Racine did 
not finish what he so well began in his Athalle, and demon- 
strate the possibility of making the drama of France a Chris- 
tian drama, without diminishing its excellence. How great 
in these respects is the superiority of the .SjDanish poetry over 
the French! Among that thoroughly Catholic people, re- 
ligion and fiction, truth and poetry, do not stand at variance 
from each other, but are all united in the most harmonious 
beauty. 

The party of the Xansfnists gave to France many distin- 
guished writers, among whom I need only mention Pascal; 
but, upon the Avhole, I am convinced that the controversii s 
which they introduced had_any effect rather than a fortunate 
one on the French literature. I shall only recall to your 
recollection, in a few Avords, the subject of most of their con- 
tests. It was a difficulty as old as human reason, and w^hich 
human reason never can thoroughly explain, — the nature of 
the free wnll of man, and its reconcile?ment with the necessity 
of nature — the omniscience and omnipotence of the Deity. 
This is a matter entirely subject to reason, and w^hich of 
right, therefore, should never have been connected w^ith re- 
ligion. The judicious friends and defenders of Christianity 
have never pronounced any opinion respecting it, excepting 
only a negative one, to express their dislike of the tw^o equal- 
ly reprehensible extremes. But as in the fifth and sixth cen- 
turies, when the doctrines of free will, and the power of 
man's own exertions, in regard to his virtue, w^ere so mu&h 
brought forward, that he was represented as a being inde- 
pendent of God, and not requiring his aid, all the friends d 
Christianity were obliged to bestir themselves in order to 
get the better of this error ; so in the sixteenth and seTen- 
teenth centuries, their chief object was to combat those very 
opposite dogmatists who maintained that man, to obtain and 



312 THE SOPHISTRY OF PASCAL. 

fulfil all the purposes of his being, needs only to lay aside 
all exertion and all free will, — who adopted, in the main, the 
antique notions of dark and inflexible destin^r, or at least the 
Mahometan ones of predestination and fatality. This con- 
troversy was in itself an useless one, but it was rendered faj 
more hurtful than it needed to have been by the manner in 
which it was conducted. 

The^rovincial letters of Pascal have, in consequence of 
their wit, and the beauty of their language, become standard 
works in French literature ; but if we would characterize 
them by iheir import and spirit, they form nothing more 
than a masterpiece of sophistry. He disdains none of the 
tricks of that dangerous art. by which he thinks he can ren- 
der his opponents, the Jesuits, contemptible or odious. That 
violence was in many respects done to truth, those acquaint- 
ed with the history of the time well know, but even although 
''hat had been much less frequently the case than it really 
was with Pascal, every one must admit that an author, such 
as he w^as, employed his genius in a very culpable manner, 
when he set the example of writing concerning religion in 
the tone of apparent levity and bitter sarcasm. At first, in- 
deed, this mode was adopted by one Christian against others, 
men whom he personally hated, although they were, serious- 
ly religious, because they did not measure the truths of 
Christianity by the geometrical standard which he himself 
preferred. But how soon w^ere the same weapons turned 
against religion itself The witty and exquisitely expressed 
sophistry of Pascal, was an admirable but a dangerous 
model, copied with but too much success by Voltaire ; and 
easily coupled by him with all the kindred artifices of Bayle 
— a genius of the highest order, who applied a most various 
erudition in order to throw out doubts, insinuations, mocker- 
ies, and jests, against religion, and to make his approaches 
on every side, like a treacherous underminer, towards the 
yet unshattered bulwarks of our faith. 

In general the spirit of philosophy in the last part of the 
seventeenth century, leaned more and more to evil. We 
may learn from the example of Hobbes alone how much 
the new doctrines of Bacon, without any intention or fault 
of that great man himself, had the tendency to promote un- 
belief and materialism. But as yet the spirit of the time 



LOCKEj BACON, ANU HOBBES 313 

was not ripe enough to receive the doctrine of unlimited right 
in the strongest, as expressed in the Leviathan. In order to 
have preached with success such an atheistical view both of 
the physical and political world, Hobbe,s should have come 
a century, or at least half a century later Locke, on the 
other hand, received much greater favour, becliiise his opin- 
ions were not so much at variance with the received moral 
principles and feelings of his time, and because the tendency 
of his book, although almost as greatly, was by no means so 
apparently irreligious. In truth his errors were the more 
dangerous, on account of the unsuspicious shape in which 
they made their appearance. It is quite evident that no 
higher kind of belief or hope can obtain a place, where 
every thing is enclosed within the narrow limits of the sen- 
ses, and their experience. Locke himself, indeed, was a 
good Christian but this is only one instance more, that he 
who first opens a new line of thought very seldom pursues 
it so far as to perceive even its most inevitable consequences. 
If we adopt his principles, we must inevitably renounce all 
other thoughts, and limit ourselves to the feeling, the experi- 
ence, and the enjoyment of the senses ; and those who in 
later times have openly professed these notions, although 
they called themselves independent philosophers, were in 
truth only the disciples of Mr. Locke. When men began 
to reflect somewhat more deeply on the proper subjects of 
this sensible experience, and then on the power which it 
possesses, and the effects which it produces, a mighty variety 
of doubts sprung up in every direction, particularly in Eng- 
land. The doctrine, that the only true knowledge is that 
shaped out by the senses and experience, is in general deci- 
ded, although not openly expressed, materialism, and in 
France it very soon threw aside the veil, such as it was. 
Indirectly, and indeed entirely contrary to his wishes, New-_ 
ton himself paved the way for the philosophy of the eigh- 
teenth century; for the defenders of the new opinions were 
proud of appealing perpetually to his authority ; and thought, 
indeed, that after his stupendous discoveries in physics, noth- 
ing is so great but that it may be attained without the assis- 
tance of religion. Both Newton and Bacon would have 
turned away with disgust from those who professed to be 
their greatest admirers in the eighteenth century. These. 
27 " 



314 THE PHILOSOPHY OF VOLTAIRE. 

indeed, with all their reverence for his philosophy, did not 
scruple to talk at times of his attachment to Christianity as 
a weakness in the mind of Newton. In many of his ex- 
pressions concerning the Deity and his connection with na- 
ture, we may perceive the traces not merely of an anima- 
ted feeling, but of a deep sentiment, marks that, though he 
was not, in strict speakmg, a philosopher, and knew nothing 
of metaphysics, he had nevertheless thought, in an original 
manner, on all the highest subjects of reflection. 

In the eighteenth century, the English were the first peo- 
ple oF Europe, in literature as in every thing else. The 
whole of the modern French philosophy was produced by 
that of Bacon, Locke, and other Englishmen ; at least, it 
borrowed all its first principles from them. In France, 
however, it soon assumed an appearance quite different 
from what it had ever had in England. In Germany, on 
the other hand, the mighty regeneration of literature in the 
middle of this century, received its first impetus and ruling 
direction principally from the poetry and the criticism of the 
English. 

Xoltair^ was the first who contributed, in a great degree, 
to bring the philosophy of Locke and Newton into France. 
It is singular with what a perversity of genius this man 
makes use of all the marvellous greatness of nature as re- 
vealed to him by the science of England, not for the purpose 
of exalting the character of the Creator, but for lowering 
that of men; how fond he is of dwelling on the insignifi- 
cance of this earthworm, amidst the immeasureable splen- 
dours of stars and planets. As if the spirit, the thought 
which can comprehend all this universe of suns and stars, 
were not something greater than they: as if God were some 
earthly monarch, who, among the millions over which he 
rules, may Avell be supposed never to have seen, and almost 
to have forgotten the existence of some paltry village on the 
border of his dominions. The eighteenth century in gen- 
eral made no use of the physical knowledge it inherited from, 
the seventeenth, except one extremely hostile to the higher 
truths of religion. In Voltaire, indeed, there is no such 
thing to be found as any regular system of infidelity, scarce- 
ly even a single firm principle, or settled philosophical opin 
ion, or even precise form of philosophical doubt. As the 



EVILS OF THE NEW FRENCH PKILCSGIKY. 315 

sophists of antiquity took a pleasure in shewing the veis util- 
ity and ingenuity of their spirit, by defending first one opin- 
ion and then the one exactly opposite to it. so Voltaire wrote 
one book in favour and another in contradiction of Provi- 
dence. Yet in so far is he sincere, that he cannot help let 
ting us see very plainly which of these works is his own 
favourite. Throughout all his writings, whatever be their 
subject, he cannot resist any opportunity of introducing hi? 
impious wit. and shewing his aversion for Christianity, and. 
in part at least, for all religion. In this point of vieAv his 
spirit operated as a corrosive and destructive engine for the 
dissolving of all earnest, moral, and religious modes of think- 
ing. Yet it appears to me that Voltaire has done even more 
harin by the spirit and purpose which he has thrown over 
Jii^ry^han by his derision of religion. He felt what was 
the defect of French literature in this department as v/ell as 
in that of poetry. Since the time of the Cardinal Retz. the 
abimdance of historical memoirs, alike interesting from their 
subjects and the lively mode of their composition, had in- 
creased to suich a degree, that they might almost be said to 
be a proper literature by themselves — and certainly to form 
one of the most brilliant parts of the whole literature of 
France. But in consequence of these memoirs, tliere is no 
doubt that history declined too much into the tone of con- 
versation, became split into particulars, and lost itself at Jast, 
to the great injury of historical truth, in an endless variety 
of anecdotes. However delightful the perusal of such works 
may be, they are, after all, only the harbingers and materials 
of history, not histories, in the proper acceptation of the 
word. At least there is much space intervening bftween 
the best possible style of writing such anecdotes, and a style 
of historical composition such as that of the ancients was, 
or among the moderns, that of Machiavelli. 

The French literature possesses rnany excellent narra- 
vives, some well collected, and (even as pieces of writing) 
praiseworthy tracts, concerning the older history of the coun- 
try, but no truly classical, national, and original work of 
histor\r. Voltaire was very sensible of this defect in the li- 
terature of his nation, and with his usual vanity of universLil 
genius, attempted to supply it himself That in regard to 
an he was not entirely successful, that as a writer of history 



316 VOLTAIRE'? INFLUENCE ON ENGLISH WRITERS. 

even in respect to the mode of composition adapted for works 
of that kmd. he can sustain no comparison, I do not say with 
the ancients, but even with the best English historians — 
Hume and Robertson ; this is now universally admitted even 
in France itself Nevertheless, the spirit in which he view- 
ed history, very soon acquired very great influence even 
over English writers — particularly Gibbon — and became 
almost the ruling historical spirit of the eighteenth contury. 
The essence of this mode of thinking in respect to history 
which proceeded from Voltaire, consists in expressing, on 
every opportunity, and in every possible form, hatred for 
monks, clergymen, Christianity, and, in general, for all 
religion. In regard to politics, its prevalent spirit is a par- 
tial, and, in the situation of modern Europe, an absurd pre- 
dilection for the republican notions of antiquity, accompanied 
very frequently with an altogether false conception, or at 
least extremely imperfect knowledge of the true spirit and 
essence of republicanism. Among the followers of Voltaire 
this went so far as to take the appearance of a decided and 
bigoted hatred of all kingly power and nobility, and in ge- 
neral of all those modes of life and government which have 
been produced by what is called the feudal system ; and all 
this, in spite of Montesquieu^ who characterized and praised, 
with the acuteness and liberality of a true philosopher, what 
these comparatively ignorant writers were only capable of 
reviling. How much was set in a false light, how greatly 
historical truth was injured, and the whole of the past un- 
worthily condemned, begins now to be discovered, since his- 
torical inquirers have adopted a more profound and accurate 
method of research. For after the philosophy of the eight- 
eenth century had entirely accomplished its own destruction, 
and the religion which it would have overthrown had come 
victorious out of the struggle, every thing in history, and in 
the past has begun to be seen in a more just and natural 
point of view. Yet there remain many falsifications, errors, 
and prejudices, with regard to past ages, which have still 
to be amended ; for in no department did the philosophy of 
the last century so deeply and so extensively establish its in- 
fluence as in history, where its wickedness and falseness are, 
uf course, less observeable to those who take facts upon trust, 



VCLTAIRE'S opinions of the FRENCH. 317 

than when their spirit is brought distinctly forward in the 
shape of philosophical doctrine and opinion. 

In regard to Voltaire, I must observe that he seems to 
have been actuated by motives of a personal nature, which 
render the spirit of his histories still more narrow and un- 
just. It is evidently his purpose to make us believe that all 
the ages before that of Lewis XIV. w^ere ages of darkness, 
and that even then, all nations except his were mere hordes 
of barbarians. This much exalted monarch plays this im- 
portant part in this historical and intellectual drama of Vol- 
taire, because he, it seems, while the whole earth was wrap- 
ped in chaos and barbarism, was the first who pronounced 
a creative fiat lux. Yet the great writers of the time of 
Lewis, and even Newton and Locke, were, after all only 
the first faint rays of the coming splendour. The mid-day 
sun of entire illumination and freethinking did not, according 
to Voltaire's opinion, manifest himself till somewhat later. 
But however inclined he Vs'as in general to flatter the foolish 
vanity of his nation, yet, in many moments of mirth or dis- 
pleasure, he spoke either from levity or bitterness, in a very 
different tone, as, for example, in that well known saying 
of his, that " the character of a Frenchman is made up of 
the tiger and the ape." In other more moderate but not 
less caustic expressions, it is easy to see how thoroughly 
Voltaire had studied and comprehended his countrymen. 
But this was a piece of knowledge that he never displayed 
except by accident. 

Even Montesflui£iL-Contributed tow^ards the formation of 
this philosophy of the eighteenth century; principally as I 
apprehend, because he neglected to give any rule or stan- 
dard of unity to that immense collection of admirable politi- 
cal remarks and opinions which he laid before the world. 
This was exactly in compliance with- what was then the 
usual fashion in every department of thought and action. 
The erudition, the genius and powerful reflections of this 
great and remarkable writer, contributed only to increase 
the general relaxation of all principle : for the spirit of the 
age, being furnished with no guiding rule, floated hither and 
thither amidst that vast sea of political facts and precepts. 
like a ship vithout anchor or compass, upon the waves of 
the ocean. 

27* 



a- 



318 CHARACTER OF EUFFON AND OTHERS. 

The tendency to sublime and elevating thoughts, even to 
religious feeling and views, is so strong in our nature, and 
occasions to call these forth are so profusely scattered over 
the world around us, that we cannot be at all surprised to 
find that many of the great French naturalists remained en 
tirely, or at least in a great measure, free from the prevalent 
spirit of irreligion, and have even here and there risen to a 
style of reflection much higher than that of their age. Al- 
though many of his opinions do not harmonize with revealed 
religion', and many others cannot stand the test of philosophy, 
— although he himself was by no means free from the ma- 
terial fetters of the entirely physical system of philosophy 
which was then in fashion : yet I can never help consider- 
ing the great Buffon as one who is entitled to be classed, at 
least in the way~oFcomparison, with the better thinkers of 
the eighteenth century. Among the latter authors, I may 
just allude to the zealous and intellectual BjonoeL. 

The social manners and constitution of modern Europe, 
and more particularly of France, had become, in very many 
respects, so remote from nature, that we can scarcely Avon- 
der that a restless and inquiring spirit should have gone en- 
tirely to the opposite extreme. But how little fitted admira- 
tion and respect for nature alone are to supply human life 
Avith a proper rule of conduct, the example of _Housseau, af- 
fords a sufficient proof. In regard to the feelmg and zeal 
which animated him, Rousseau, as a reasoner, is not only 
superior to Voltaire, and all other French philosophers of 
the last century, but of a class entirely different from them. 
The influence Avhich he exerted over his age and nation 
was perhaps onl}?" on that account the more hurtful. It is 
only w4ien a strong mind, striving passionately in quest of 
truth, pursues its reseaiches in a wrong direction, and em- 
braces error in room of it, that error assumes a form 
of real danger, and becomes capable of seizing possession 
of generous natures, whose general principles are in an 
unsettled state. The wit of Voltaire contributed very much 
to unsettle and relax principle, and thereby paved the way 
for Rousseau. But this man's impetuous and overwhelm- 
ing eloquence drew into the whirlpool of error many whom 
the mere sophistry of wit and pleasantry could never have 
led astray. It is true that at first Rousseau's pictures of sa« 



THE DOCTRINE OF PURE ETHICS. 319' 

vage life, and his theory of a pure democracy of reason, 
gave rise to more wonder than conviction. But as it was 
this man's fortune to become the founder of a new system 
and method of education, whei ein the developement of the 
mdividual man is supposed tD be best conducted upon the 
isolated principle of seclusion, and entirely without regarc^ 
to his situation as a citizen, we need not be astonished t(» 
find that at a somewhat later period even the wildest of his 
dreams about natural politics found both admirers and de 
fenders. After having seen that the extension of physical 
science contributed very much, in its misapplied condition, 
to immorality, irreligion. and even atheism, it is no wonder 
that a direction equally culpable and dangerous was giren 
by the philosophers of the eighteenth century to the improv- 
ed knowledge of men and nations. But however much 
men might refine and adorn their descriptions of American 
savages, in order to promote the idea of the pc-.-sibility of 
natural perfection, there remained always a few points in 
the testimony of every traveller which presented insurmount- 
able difficulties to the admirers of barbarity. In Voltaire, 
on the other hand, and in many other French writers of his 
time, we may observe an equally absurd predilection, an- 
other extreme — one as far removed as can well be from the 
wild freedom of savages. I mean a passion for the Chinese, 
a people polished into perfect tameness and uniformity, and 
exhibiting the best specimen of what has since been called 
" the Despotism of Reason." i An age which was perpe- 
tually endeavouring to substitute a complete system of police 
in the room of the antiquated influences of religion and mo- 
rality, which regarded the perfection of a few manufactures 
as ttie sole and highest object of human society, and what 
they called '- the doctrine of pure ethics," as the 7ie plus ul- 
tra of illumination — an age such as this could scarcely 
indeed fail to contemplate, with mighty admiration, the 
spectacle of a nation which has, according to its own ac- 
count, possessed for some thousand years laws without reli- 
gion, which has had newspapers some centuries longer than 
ourselves, which can imprint upon porcelain colours more 
brilliant than we are acquainted with, and make paper thin- 
ner and finer than any European manufactory. It is lamenta- 
ble to see into what contemptible perversities the misdirected 



320 THE DOGMAS OF HELVETIUS. 

ingenuity of a few rational men can conduct both them- 
selves and their contemporaries. 

Voltaire and Rousseau were the first who gave its form 
and shape to the spirit of the eighteenth century ; but they 
had many coadjutors in their attempts, many who were in- 
defatigable in rendering the moral philosophy of Locke 
more decided in its principles as well as bolder in its conse- 
quences, and in rendering it, so improved, the manuel of 
the age. What results this produced in regard to human 
life, may oe learned from the single example of Helve tius. 
This man proved to the satisfaction of his readers, that self- 
ishness, vanity, and sensual enjoyment are the true and cer- 
tain guides, the only rational ends of enlightened men. the 
only realities in human life — and his readers soon began to 
suspect that the same principles ought to be extended to the 
whole universe. Mind, according to this doctrine, there is 
none, for matter is every thing, and man is distinguished 
from the brutes not by intellect, but by hands and fingers- 
advantages which, in some degree at least, he appears tc 
share with the monkey. The difference between the man 
and the monkey was indeed diminished very much in the 
opinion of many philosophers of this time, and it was a very 
favourite speculation to discover the existence of interme- 
diate and connecting species between them. It is much to 
be regretted that Rousseau did not fulfil the intention he 
once expressed of openly combating the dogmas of Helve- 
tius. He must in the course of such a controversy, have at 
least been compelled to settle and explain somewhat more 
fully his own principles, and these, hoAvever erroneous, pos- 
sess, when compared with those of the other, much that is 
both good and noble, and capable of being improved. 

The last step in the progress of the French ante-revolu- 
tionary philosophy, is that marked by the congenial spirit 
of Diderot I may, without question, assume the fact, that 
this man was the centrepoint and animating principle, not 
onl^T-of the Encylopccdia. but also of. the Systeme de la Na- 
ture, and of many other works connected in the same spirit 
of audacious atheism. He wrought indeed much more in 
secret than in public ; he was different from VcJtaire and 
Rousseau in this, that he had less vanity of authorship than 
they, and was perfectly satisfied when he could gain tlie vie 



THE WORKS OF DIDEROT. 321 

tory, \vithout Vvishing to be personally held up as the victor. 
He was peculiarly distinguished by a most fanatical hatred, 
not only of all Christianity, but of all kinds of rehgion He 
maintained that these are all alike founded in the superstitious 
terrors left on the minds of a half destroyed race, by those 
terrible revolutions in the natural world, the traces of which 
are still so apparent around us. In many of the writings of 
this school, even the name of Atheism is not concealed, but 
it is openly stated that man can never be happy till he learns 
to throw aside the w^hole doctrine of a Deity — an opinion, 
the absurdity of which has been but too fatally demonstrated 
b}'' the experience of a few subsequent years. Of all the 
forms in which this atheistical sj^stem was brought before 
the world, perhaps the most singularly extravagant was the 
theory which represented Christ as a mere astronomical 
symbol — a being never possessed of historical existence — 
and the twelve apostles as so many old signs of the zodiac. 
The whole spirit of this system, and the whole of the prac- 
tical purposes which it was intended to serve, may be learned 
from the single well known wish, of which the fathers of 
the revolution made no secret — '' that the last king might be 
burned on a funeral pile, composed of the body of the last 
priest." 



LECTURE XIV 



LK3HTER SPECIES OF WRITING IN FRANCE, AND IMITATION OP THB. ENG- 

ISM — ^FASHIONABLE LITERATURE OF BOTH COUNTRIES MODERN BO. 

MANCtS THE PROSE OF BUFFON AND ROUSSEAU POPULAR POETRV IN 

ENGLAND MODERN ITALL\N THEATRE CRITICISM AND HISTORICAL 

COMPOSITION OF THE ENGLISH — SCEPTICAL PHILOSOPHY RETURN TO A 

BETTER AND HIGHER SPECIES OF PHILOSOPHY IN FRANCE — BONALD AND 
ST. MARTIN —SIR WILLIAM JONES AND BURKE. 



From the time of Lewis XIV. the French language has 
always possessed great wealth in all these lighter species of 
writing, whose inspiration consists of imagination and wit. 
Yet even in this respect the elder times were the more fortu- 
nate. No later writer of comedies has come near to Mo- 
liere; the peculiar charm of La Fontaine, in his artkss 
species of poetical narration, remains inimitable. Voltaire, 
who in his opinions and philosophy belongs so entirely to 
the later time, and was even the founder of its principles, 
so far as literature and poetry are concerned, is one of the 
elder school, and so forms a sort of point of connection be- 
tween it and the new. His success in comed}^ was far less 
than in tragedy ; but he is quite unrivalled in his variety of 
miscellaneous, ^^dtty, and occasional poems of every kind. 
The minor poems and songs of the French had always this 
tendency to social wit and fashion, while those of the Eng- 
lish, on the other hand, partook more of the true nature of 
lyrical poetry, and were distinguished by their depth of 
thought and their tone of natural feeling in description. I'he 
more poetry attaches itself to the present, and the life of so- 
ciety, the mor^ local does it become, and subject to the in- 
fluences of fashion. Many comedies, romances, and songs, 
produced in the end of the seventeenth or the beginning of 
the eighteenth century, which are in themselves full of :;alent, 
and were in their day very celebrated in France, have since 



CHARACTERISTICS OF FRENCH STYLE. 323 

become as obsolete as tbe manners and opinions of the so- 
ciety which they represent. Should the poetry of any nation 
confine itself entirely to these species, and to subjects exclu- 
sively modern — to dramatic pictures of manners without fable 
— to tales taken from the life of ordinary society — and witty 
occasional poems — it would be almost as impossible and ab- 
surd to attempt a historical or critical account of it, as to 
make a display of anatomical skill upon the ephemerides of 
a summer evening. The object of these productions is no- 
'hing- more than to fill up the idle hours of fashionable life 
and amusement; and even although, in order to fulfil this 
purpose, they may at times make use of feeling, passion, and 
original thoughts, their end still continues to be pastime — a 
thing which may be attained quite as well without poetry 
as with it. 

It is true, without doubt, that in the miscellaneous and 
trifling species of poetry, there are to be found productions 
which bear as decidedly the stamp of genius as the first 
works of the epic poet or the .ragedian. The beauty, how- 
ever, is seldom so universal. It depends very often entirely 
upon expression, and its delicacies, things which can be more 
easily felt than explained. A heroic poem or a tragedy can 
be very well comprehended although translated into a differ- 
ent language, and in general the greater its intrinsic excel- 
lence is, the less does it suffer by such a transmutation. But 
I doubt whether any foreigner, however complete may be 
his familiarity with the French language, can ever sympa- 
thize in its utmost extent with the admiration which French- 
men express for La Fontaine. Naivete, elegance, and the 
stamp of genius, these every one must recognize in him : but 
a Frenchman feels and enjoys something still more exquisite 
than these, and this depends on the language, to an entire 
feeling of whose numberless peculiarities no foreigner ever 
can attain. Many even of the most celebrated characteristic 
pieces of Moliere are now become too antiquated for the 
stage and actual representation, and can be admired only in 
reading. However high we may be inclined to place these 
.Ts individual w^orks and in the scale of French poetry, their 
eflects, as the beginning of a new species of writing, and ac 
models for future artists, have been ver}?- far from fortunate. 
The characters of Labruyere or Theophrastus may be set 



324 EXGLiSH A.ND FRENCH WRITING. 

forth in a dramatic form, but they can never become poetry 
Even the rhetoric of the passions, when it forms the sole ani- 
mation of the tragedy, is far from coming up to our ideas of 
what tragedy ought to be : in Hke manner, the psychologi- 
cal wire drawing of characters and passions in comedy fur- 
nishes a very unequal substitute for poetry and wit. The 
tendency to this extreme minuteness of characterization has 
frequently formed a subject of reproach against the higher 
French comedy of the eighteenth century. From it the 
change wad by no means a difficult one to those ethical 
treatises in the shape of comedies, of which, unfortunatel)r 
for his own nation, and still more so for ours, Diderot was 
the inventor. 

The original French character is, I believe, quite as light 
and careless as it is usually represented ; but among the 
French books of the eighteenth century, I confess, I can per- 
ceive very few traces of this, even in those situations where 
it might have appeared with the greatest propriety. This 
must be ascribed to the ever increasing spirit of philosophical 
and political sectarianism ; and even from the external his- 
tory of the period, it is quite easy to see why a passionate 
species of rhetoric came to acquire a complete predominance 
over the old trivial spirit of the French. The truth is, that 
the nation itself had undergone as great a change as its lite- 
rature. The ruling philosophy of morals was indeed ex- 
pressed by some poets in light and humorous strains ; but it 
carried most by much too far, and quite beyond all the limits 
of poetry. Materialism is essentially inimical to poetry and 
deadening to fancy. The magic of the muse must lose all 
its power over one who is thoroughly penetrated with the 
degrading doctrines of Helvetius. 

On the other hand, the passion for freedom, and the ado- 
ration of nature, which, chiefly by means of the followers of 
Rousseau, became predominant in the new philosophy, were 
not easily to be reconciled with the formal accuracy of the 
elder French poetry in the seventeenth century. From this 
circumstance there arose an internal conflict, and enduring 
struggle, to get rid of the ancient authority, and this broke 
out in an open rebellion of taste, and produced an entire, 
although perhaps only a transitory, anarchy in literature, 
even before the period of the political revolution : hence the 



rOLTAIRE, ROUSSEAU, AND DIDEROT. 325 

predilection for the poetry of England. Even Voltaire had 
made much use of it in particular instances, not only without 
acknowledgment, but in the midst of perpetual sarcasms 
against Milton and Shakespeare. In all the French efforts, 
in the higher walks of poetry, this influence of the Eng Jsh 
is even in our own times sufficiently apparent. The desire 
to give tragedy a greater freedom o? construction and more 
of historical import, without however entirely laying aside 
the old system, is still undiminished, although it has never 
as yet produced any very considerable results. The last 
works of elevated poetry which have acquired a classical 
reputation in France, are descriptive poems of the species 
peculiar to England. But of all species of writing, none 
was so much the favourite of the literati of the new school as 
the romance; for 'whatever fetters might have been imposed 
on all the regular forms of poetical composition, this at least 
remained perfectly free. When Voltaire clothed his wit in 
this form, when Rousseau embodied in it his enthusiasm and 
his eloquence, when Diderot chose to make it the vehicle of 
his immorality, romance became in the hands of each of these 
men of genius, exactly what he found it most convenient for 
himself to make it. The two first of them had many fol- 
lowers, who attempted to embody a similar spirit in the form 
of a more regular narration, and under the guise of a more 
exact delineation of the present modes of life. No one is 
ignorant into how many romances the principles and opinions 
of Candide have been wrought. Others were more the imi- 
tators of Rousseau ; among these not a few who partook in 
his passion for nature, have chosen to lay the scene of their 
fictions among the wildernesses of America, — regions ir 
which they might certainly consider themselves as quite free 
from the domestic tyranny of Aristotle and Boileau. The 
most distinguished of these are Bernardin de St. Pierre, and 
Chateaubriand. 

Voltaire, Rousseau, and Diderot, made use of the romance 
very frequently, merely because they knew not in what other 
form they could so conveniently express certain philosophi- 
cal opinions. But if we regard romance as a species of po- 
etry, and as the regular representation in narration or inci- 
dents taken from actual life and manners, it is quite evident 
that the French have even in this species of writing been the 

28 



326 ENGIISH WRITERS OF ROMANCE. 

imitators of the English, although I am far from thinking 
that they have attained equal excellence with them. In in'- 
vention axid. power of representation, perhaps Richardson 
may be entitled to the first place. Although this writer has 
already become antiquated and obsolete both at homii and 
abroad, although his attempts at the higher species of poetic 
fiction are in the main unsuccessful, and although his ex- 
treme copiousness is vulgar and disagreeable, we should, I 
suspect, attribute the decline of his popularity to any ching 
rather than a deficiency of genius. The species of writing 
which he adopted is a false one, and even a more powerful 
genius than that of Richardson could not easily get over the 
difficulties which it presents. Among the modern imitatoss 
of Cervantes, the most accomplished are Fielding and Smol- 
let. Of all romances in miniature (and perhaps this is the 
best shape in which romances can appear,) the Vicar of 
Wakefield is, I think, the most exquisite. That other spe- 
cies of romance, of which the purpose is not narration but 
humour, and which loses itself in the mere play of wit and 
sentiment, was carried by its first inventor, Sterne, to a point 
of excellence at which none of his French imitators have 
arrived. 

If we must give an opinion of those works of intellect 
which serve the purposes of mere fashion and daily use, as 
we should of any other species of fashionable manufacture, 
I think the common run of English novels and romances 
are as much superior to the common run of the French, as 
Smollet and Fielding are superior to the best of the French 
novelists. 

I must not omit to mention one circumstance which has 
been extremely unpropitious to French romance : I allude 
to the extraordinary abundance in this literature of memoirs, 
confessions, books of letters and anecdotes, all more or less 
partrikmg in the nature of the romance. I am not aware 
thal^any tale of Marmontel has ever excited so universal an 
interest as his memoirs ; and I am quite sure that no French 
romance ever produced half so much effect as the Confes- 
sions of Rousseau. 

In general, poetry, during the eighteenth century, was 
driven out of fashion in France by prose ; this, we must ad- 
mit, although not without many great errors and faults, was 



UUFFON AND ROUSSEAU COIPARCD. 327 

rich, and Li ^he hands of the most eminent writers was de- 
veloped with the highest power and eloquence. Voltaire's 
style in prose is animated and witty like himself; it is per- 
fectly adapted to him and his purposes. The more severe 
French critics disapprove of his prose, and in history, in- 
deed, I think it is by no means a suitable one. Many Ger- 
mans find something very delightful to them in the style o 
Diderot, and I agree with them that he shews a per:eption 
and feeling of the more delicate beauties of imitative art by 
no means common among the writers of his country; but 
his language is incorrect and hasty, and wholly devoid of 
that pure elegance which characterizes the witty writings of 
the best French authors. In reepect to style, Buffon and 
Rousseau are justly regarded with the highest admiration. 
The former is perhaps. the richest and most graceful of the 
two ; but he was so much fettered by the nature of his work, 
that he never could introduce his rhetoric without an epi- 
sode, and this has destroyed in a great measure the effect 
which he was fitted by nature to produce. It may appear 
natural enough that he should have given his theory of love 
in the article Dove- But we could scarcely have looked for 
a rhetorical treatise on the subject of the dispersion of na 
tions under the word Hare. Aristotle allowed himself no 
such liberties in his capacity of natural historian. As a sci- 
entific writer BufTon can sustain no comparison with the 
illustrious Greek whom it was his chief ambition to rival. 
Upon the whole, I coincide with those who give the prefe- 
rence to Rousseau over Buffon ; for, although his style is in 
particular respects equally defective, there is more unity of 
purpose, and a more eloquent flow of composition in his 
works. His charm lies much more in this last peculiarity, 
than in the extraordinary beauty of individual passages. My 
feelings perfectly accord with those who esteem Rousseau 
the first of all the French writers of the last century, in re- 
gard to skill and power of eloquence; but I must not conceal 
from 3^ou that I, nevertheless, look upon the beauty of his 
composition as holding a place extremely below the sublime 
oratory of Bossuet. 

Should the present condition of affairs ever be altered. 
and the superiority of prose over poetry in the language aiid 
literature of France become less tyrannical] in other words, 



328 PREDILECTION FOR FRENCH TASTE. 

should poetry ever revive among the French, I am cleariy 
of opinion, that their hest means of attaining great excellence 
will consist, not m any strict imitation of English models, 
or of any foreign models whatever, but in a hearty recur- 
'rence to the old spirit and poetry of their own nation. The 
miitation of another nation can never be perfectly successful, 
for the most perfect productionsof this nation remain always 
foreign to those who make them their models. Every na- 
tion has enough in its power Avhen it can go back to its own 
original and most ancient poetry and legends. The farther 
back we go in history, the more intimate do we find the 
connection between different nations to be. But it is in the 
very first ages of national existence that the foundations both 
of national character and national poetry are laid. 

In England, at the beginning of last century, the leaning 
towards a French taste in poetry was still evident ,• its in- 
fluence is apparent in the elaborate versification of Pope, 
and in the tragedy which Addison wrote with a view to 
promote what he conceived to be more just ideas concerning 
poetical theory among his countrymen. Yet both of these 
authors contributed in no small degree towards bringing 
Shakespeare and Milton out of oblivion. Pope's translation 
of Homer, however remote it may be from the simphcity 
of the old bard, increased, nevertheless, the general love for 
this great poet of nature and antiquity, and is itself a proof 
of the existence of this love. In the original poems of Pope. 
we can perceive abundant traces of that predilection for 
thought which has rendered didactic poetry so much a fa- 
vourite among the English. 1 have already expressed my 
belief, that this species contains always something of the 
frigid and unpoetic ; and England has furnished another 
example that, such as it is, it becomes very soon exhausted. 
The common materials of didactic poetry were, however, 
often combined in England with the more poetical elements 
of passion and melancholy ; as, for example, in the gloomy 
and enthusiastic Young. Thomson expressed his feelings 
more tastefully and beautifully in that species of poetry so 
much loved by his countrymen, and, after his own time, so 
much copied by foreigners — the descriptive. The passion 
for nature was the origin of the national love of Ossian ; 
and although neither the sorrow of Ossian, nor the despair 



DECLINE OF POETRY. 329 

of Young-, be every where prevalent, the spirit of serious 
meditation is certainly much more diffused over the lyrical 
j)oems of England during the eighteenth century, than even 
those of France. By the side of the ever increasing vene- 
ration of Shakespeare, there grew up, chiefly in consequence 
of the writings of Percy, a passionate love for the old ballads 
and popular poems. The more of these were discovered 
(and the wealth of the Scots in particular is almost bound- 
less,) the more did the love of them overcome that of every 
other kind of writing, and engross the whole ( f the English 
literature, with the single exception of romances and plays 
for daily use. In France, then, at the end of the seventeenth, 
and beginning of the eighteenth centuries, the higher kinds 
of poetry were cultivated in a manner too regular and pre- 
cise, and gradually sunk into the tone of social wit. In 
England, on the other hand, serious thoughts and poetical 
descriptions of natural scenery were the chief materials at 
the commencement of the last century, and, at its close, the 
universal passion vvas for the ancient national ballads — me- 
lancholy echoes of the lost poetry of a more heroic time. 
Those acquainted with the modern literature of England 
are well aware how this propensity has been fostered by the 
genius of the poets who are our own contemporaries. 

Upon the whole, during last century, the state of poetry 
was a. very poor one, at least when compared with the 
riches of antecedent times, even in countries where poetry 
is intermingled with all the enjoyments of life, as m Spain : 
or where the spirit of art forms almost the character of the 
nation, as in Italy. In this last country, however^ although 
che higher species of poetry produced no new works worthy 
of being placed by the side of those of the more ancient pe- 
riod, the theatre, at least, was more successful aud fruitful 
than it ever before had bejen. In Metastasio, Goldoni, Goz- 
zi, Alfieri, we may discover, in a separate state, all those 
elements of a poetical drama, which, in a more blended con- 
dition, characterize our own stage. In Metastasio we find 
the highest musical beauty of language; in Goldoni com- 
mon life is represented in a light and delightful manner, 
with those airy accompaniments of masking and carnival 
which appear natural to an Italian. In Gozzi's fantastic 
popular stories and plays of witchcraft and spectacle, we can 
28* 



330 ENGLISH AND FRENCH DRAMA COMPARED. 

perceive an abundance of the true poetical power of inyention 
but there is a great want of that musical harmony and elegance 
of fancy w^hich are requisite before invention can take jusi 
possession of the stage. In the dramas of Alfieri, an attempt 
is made to revive the sublimity of the antique ; an attempt 
so noble, that it is well worthy of great praise, even when 
it is not entirely successful. 

I am not certain but the same remark which I made a 
few pages back, respecting the comparative merits of the 
modern French and English romances, might be with equal 
propriety applied to their modern dramas. Both are mere 
species of manufacture, and I think the English are rather 
the best of the two. The Italian theatre lies much nearer 
ourselves, both in regard to external shape and later develop- 
ment. 

The criticisal books of the English, and in particular 
most of their treatises concerning poetry and the imitative 
arts, are distinguished by greater freedom, originalit}', and 
knowledge of the antique, and bear on these accounts more 
affinity to our modes of thinking than those of the French. 
Although, how^ever, our German criticism certainly received 
its first impulse from the study of the English works of 
Harris. Home. Hurd. Watson, &c. we soon became suffi- 
ciently independent of these ; and, perhaps, in no department 
of our literature is there so much originality as in this. 

Of all the works connected with elegant literature which 
the English produced during the last century, by far the 
most important are their great historical writings. They 
have, in this department, surpassed all the other European 
nations : they had, at all events, the start in point of time ; 
and have become the standard models both in France and 
in Germany. The first place is, I believe, universally 
given to David Hume. But however salutary may be the 
spirit of scepticism in the conduct of historical researches, I 
am strongly of opinion that this spirit, when it is not con- 
fined to events alone, but extends its doubts to all the prin- 
ciples of morality and religion, is by no means becoming in 
a great national historian, and will, in the end, diminish in 
a very considerable measure the influence which the native 
genius of this singular man might well have entitled him 
to maintain over the minds of his countrymen. 



HUME AND Robertson's histories. 331 

Navrow principles and views of things not perfectly just, 
are, I am free to confess, in my estimation, much Ijetter fitted 
for a great historian than no principles at all. and a deaden- 
ing want of feeling, warmth, and passion. When these are re- 
moved, the only remaining means of creating interest m a 
historical work is the love of opposing tne ruling opmions 
and of paradoxy. The leaning to this species of opposition 
is most evident in Hume. However praiseworthy and salu- 
tary it might be, that such a writer as Hume was, should 
take up a set of opinions opposed to those of the Whigs — a 
party in his day, as well as in our own, possessed of per- 
haps too much influence over the literature of England — 
and should represent a most important part of ilij B.iiish 
history with a predilection for the unfortunate house of 
Stuart, and the principles of the Tories ; it is evident, that 
had he written without any such views, he might have at- 
tained to an eminence far beyond that which he has reached, 
and descended to posterity not as the first of all party writers 
of history, but as the author of a truly great national work, 
the spirit and excellence of which should have been equally 
admired and appreciated by all the English. In his treat- 
ment of the elder periods of the English history, he is quite 
unsatisfactory and meagre; he had no love for its antiquities, 
and could not transport himself back into the spirit of re- 
mote ages. 

In regard to style, few writers of any country can sustain 
a comparison with Robertson ; his expressions are select and 
elegant, but always clear and unlaboured. But he is very 
inferior in respect to other matters of far greater importance, 
— the research and import of his histories. The English 
themselves are now pretty well convinced that he is a care- 
less, superficial, and blundering historian, although they 
study hi-s works, and are right in doing so, as models of pure 
composition, extremely deserving of attention, during the 
present declining state of English style. To speak from my 
own feelings, I think Robertson, although upon the whole a 
beautiful writer, is too fond both of verbosity and of anti- 
thesis. The ambition of fine writing, and of the desire to 
treat matters in an elaborate and oratorical manner, appeal 
to me to be extremely erroneous and out of place in a writer 
of history. If historical composition is to be considered 



6ii CHARACTERISTICS OF GIBBON S STYl E- ■ 

merely as a display of writing, no modern author need ever 
flatter himself with the least hope, I do not say of equalling, 
but of approaching the great historians of antiquity. We 
have it in our power, however, to surpass them in another 
way, namely, by considering history in a more scientific 
manner, and making use of those opportunities and instru- 
ments of information in which our times are so much supe- 
rior to those of Greece and Rome. If we make this oui 
object, the best style which we can adopt is the most simple; 
•xe should write clearly and carefully, but avoid all appear- 
ince of artifice, superfluity. afTectation, or ambitiousness. 

Gibbon is a writer full of thoughts : his language is in 
general powerful and exquisite, but it has. to a great excess, 
ihe faults of elaborateness, pompousness. and monotony. His 
it'jle is full of Latin and French words and phrases. The 
Enghsh language, as being of so very mixed a nature, and 
IS possessing such a variety of words and phrases, and con- 
structions, Latin, French, and domestic, has no very exact 
standard to regulate the proportion of the different elements 
which are placed at the disposal of those who use it. That 
elaborate and half- Latin manner of writing by which Gib- 
bon is distinguished, had before him been brought very much 
into fashion by the example of the critic Johnson ; in prin- 
ciple at least the English have now departed from it. and 
speak of it as a false species, and hostile to the spirit of their 
language. The work of Gibbon, however instructive and 
fascinating it may be, is nevertheless at bottom an offensive 
one, on account of his deficiency in feeling, and his propen- 
sity to the infidel opinions and impious mockeries of Vol- 
taire. These are things extremely unworthy of a historian, 
and in the periodic and somewhat cumbrous style of Gibbon, 
they appear set off to far less advantage than in the light and 
airy compositions of his iTiaster. He never seems to be na- 
turally a Avit, but impresses us with the idea that he would 
very fain be one if he could. Although I have mentioned 
some faults which I think I perceive in each of these three 
great writers, yet their general excellence is not to be dispu- 
ted, and is felt b}^ none more deeply than myself; they ap- 
pear indeed to great advantage with whomsoever we com- 
j)are them, and never more so than when we turn from th^ii 
vvritings to those of their followers and imitators. Wirli 



DECLINE OF HISTORICAL WRITING. 333 

all the abundance of his Italian elegance, what is the over- 
loaded and afltcted Roscoe when compared with- Gibbon ? 
Coxe, althoug'h master of a good and classical style, rtstm- 
bles Robertson in no respect so much as in the suptrficial- 
ness of his researches; and the statesman Fox has nothing 
in common ^^■ith Hame but the bigotr}'- of his pait)^ zeal. 
The art of historical writing is evidently quite on the de- 
cline in England. One great cause of this consists, ] im- 
agine, in the want of any stable and satisfactory philosojihy 
— a defect sufficiently apparent even in three grtat write. s 
Avhom I have enumerated. ^Vithout some rational and due 
conceptions of the fate and destiny of man, it is impossible 
to form any just and consistent opinion, even concerning the 
progress of events, the development of times, and the fo-c- 
tunes of nations. In every situation history and philosophy 
should be as much as possible united. Philosophy, if alto- 
gether separated from history, and destitute of the spirit of 
criticism, which is the result of the union to which I have 
alluded, can become nothing more than a wild existence of 
sect and formality. History, on the other hand, wdthout the 
animating spirit of philosophy, is merely a dead heap of 
useless materials, devoid of internal unity, proper purpose, 
or worthy result. The want of satisfying and sane views 
and principles, is now here more conspicuous than in those 
histories of mankind, as they have been called, originally 
produced in England, and more recently written among 
ourselves. From the immense storehouse of travels and 
voyages, a few facts are collected, which make up loose por- 
traits of the fisher, the hunter, the emigration of the early 
nations, and the different conditions of agricultural, pastoral, 
and commercial peoples. This is called a view of the his- 
tory of mankind, and there is no doubt that it contains many 
individual points of great interest and importance, with re- 
spect to the progress and habits of our species. Such would 
he the case, even if w^e shou.ld treat of men entirely accord- 
ing to their corporeal subdivisions of white, black, red, and 
brown. But how little is gained by all this as to the only 
real question, an answer to which should form the proper 
history of mankind ! How little do we learn as to the ori- 
gin and proper state, or the present lamentable and fallen 
condition of human iiatur*^ ! The answer to this question 



334 MODERN SCHOOLS OF PHILOSOPHY 

which is the essence of all history, can only be supplied by 
religion and philosophy ; that philosophy, I mean, which 
has no other ambition and no other end but to support reli- 
gion. In these false histories of mankind, the wo i thy off- 
spring of the degraded and material philosophy of the eigh- 
teenth century, the predominant idea is always, that man 
sprung originally from the dust like a mushroom, and differ- 
ed from it only by the possession of locomotive power and 
of consciousness. The ambition of their authors is to rep- 
resent us as originally brutes, and to shew how, by the pro- 
gress of our own ingenious contrivances, art has been added 
to art, and science to science, till our nature has gradually 
reached the high eminence on which it now stands. The 
greater intimacy of connection can be established between 
us and the ourang-outang, (that favourite of so many phil- 
osophers of the last century.) the more rational are suppost d 
to be our opinions concerning our species, and i-ts history. 

The philosophy of sensation, which was unconsciously 
bequeathed to the world by Bacon, and reduced to the shape 
of a regular system by Locke, first displayed in France the 
true immorality and destructiveness of which it is the parent, 
and assumed the appearance of a perfect sect of atheism. In 
England it took a different course ; in that country it could 
not indeed be supposed likely to produce the same effects, 
because the old principles of religion were regarded as far 
too intimately connected with national welfare, to be easily 
abandoned. The spirit of English thought was moreover 
naturally inclined to adopt the paradoxical and sceptical side 
of this philosophy rather than the material and atheistical. 
The most singular phenomenon in the whole history of phi- 
losophy is perhaps the existence of such a man as Berkeley, 
who carried the system of Locke so far, as utterly to disbe- 
lieve the existence of the external world, and yet continued 
all the while a devout Christian bishop. How external ob- 
jects come into contact with our intellect, so that it forms no- 
tions of them — this was a point upon which the philosophy 
of that time neither came nor could come to any^ satisfactoiy 
conclusion All that we perceive or feel of these things is 
after all only an impi*ession, a change upon ourselves. We 
may pursue it as far as we will ; we can lay hold on only 
such a notion or perception of an object, not the object itself, 



BERKELEY AND HUME. 335 

— ^that seeins, the more we seek it. to fl^; tlie farthei from us. 
If we consider nature, as either itself animated, or as the 
medium instrument and expression of hfe. then this perplexity 
is at an end. and every thing becomes clear. We have no 
difficulty in conceiving, that between two living and mutual- 
ly operating spiritual natures, there may exist a third nature 
apparently' inanimate, to serve as the bond of connection and 
mutual operation, to be their word and language, or to seiA^e 
as the separation and wall of partition between them. We 
are familiar with such an idea, from our own experience, 
because we cannot have any intercourse of thought vrith our 
brother men. or even analyze our thoughts, except through 
the operation of exactly similar means. The simple convic- 
tion, however, that the sensible world is merely the habita- 
tion of the intellectual, and a medium, of separation as wt 11 
as connection between intellectual naturts, had been lost 
along with the knowledge and idea of the wojld of intelhct, 
and the animating impression of its existence. The philoso- 
phy of the sensf-s stumbled, in this way. at the very thnsh- 
old, and proceeded to become more and more perplexed in 
every step of its progress. Berkeley believed that the ex- 
ternal world has no real existence, and that our notions and 
impressions of it are directly communicated to us by the 
Deity. From the same doubts Hume fell into a totally dif- 
ferent system, the sceptical. — a philosophy which humbles 
Itself before its doubts, and dtnies the possibility of attaining 
knowledge. This man. by the penetrating and convulsive 
influence of his scepticism, determined the future condition 
of English philosophy. Since his time nothing more has 
been attempted than to erect all sorts of bulwarks against the 
practical influence of this destructive scepticism; and to 
maintain, by various substitutes and aids, the pile of moral 
principle uncorruptfd and entire. Not only with Adam 
Smith, but with all theii- later philosophers, national welfare 
is the ruling and central principle of thought, — a principle 
excellent and praiseworthy in its due situation, but quite un 
fitted for being the centre and oracle of all knowledge and 
science. The two great substitutes to Avhich I allude are 
neither scientifically nor practically of a durable and effec- 
tive nature. Common sense is poor when compared v»'ith 
certain knowledge, and moral feeling is a very inadequate 



do', PECirLIARITlES OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 

foundation for a proper system of ethics. Were the com 
mon sense of man even as sound and universal as these Eng- 
lish reasoners maintain, if we should take its conclusions for 
the last, and subject them to no higher review, we should 
find it more likely to cut than to unloose the knot of the 
great questions in philosophy. The innate curiosity of man 
is not to be so satisfied, but however frequently we may put 
it off returns to the charge with undiminished pertinacity. 
Moral feeling and sympathy are things too frail and uncer- 
tain for a rule of moral action. We must have, in addition 
to these, an eternal law of rectitude, derived not from expe- 
rience and feeling, but from reason or from God. A fair 
and unshaken faitir is indispensable for our welfare. But 
the faith which the English philosophers have established 
upon the dictates of common sense and moral feeling, is like 
the props upon which, it leans, uncertain and unworth}' of 
our confidence. It is not worthy of the name of faith ; the 
name applied to the impression made upon us by reason and 
external experience, and with equal propriety to the impres- 
sions we receive in a totally different way from the internal 
voice of conscience and the revelations of a superior nature. 
That which is called faith among these men is nothing more 
than weak and self-doubting faith of necessity. — a thing as 
incapable of standing the test of time, as the frail faith ol 
custom IS to resist the arguments of unprincipled sophistry. 
This nation is powerful and free in its whole being and life. 
Even in poetry, it regards the profound and internal rather 
than the outward and ornamental, but by means of its own 
errors it is cramped and confined in its philosophy. In re- 
gard to this mighty department of human intellect and exer- 
tion, the English of the later times are neither original nor 
great ; thej' even appear to be fundamentally inferior to some 
of the best writers among the French. If a few authors in 
England have pursued an intellectual path of their own, 
quite different from the common one, they have exerted no 
powerful, or at least no extensive, influence over their fellow- 
countrymen. The attempts with Avhich I myself am ac- 
quainted do not indeed display genius such as might entitle 
fhem to nmch consideration. 

We may compare the mode of philosophical thought m 
England to a man who bears every external mark of health 



FUTURE CRISIS OF ENGLAND. 337 

cflil vigour, but who is by nature prone to a dangerous dis- 
temper. He has repressed the first eruptions of the disease 
by means of palliatives, but the evil has on that very account 
had the more leisure to entwine itself with the roots of his 
constitution. The disease of philosophical error and unbe- 
lief can never be got the better of, unless by a thorough and 
radical cure. I think for this reason that it is extremely 
probable, nay, that it is almost certain, England has yet to 
undergo a mighty crisis in her philosophy, and of necessity, 
m her morality and her religion. 

If we regard not so much the immediate practical conse- 
quences, but rather the internal progress of intellect itself, 
we shall be almost compelled to think error is less danger- 
ous when open and complete, than when half-formed and 
disguised. In the midst of moderate errors our self-love 
keeps us ignorant of our danger. But when error has 
reached its height, it is the nature of the human mind to 
promote a re-action, and to rise Avith new strength and power 
out of the abyss into which at last it perceives itself to have 
fallen. 

Such a return, and certainly a most remarkable one, to 
the truth and true philosophy, has occurred of late years in 
France. After that altar, upon which, shortly before, reason, 
the goddess of the age, was worshipped, more appropriately 
than her devotees suspected, under the shape of an actress or 
a harlot, — after this altar had been purified, and religion re- 
stored, after a church without a creed and the chimera of 
Theophilanthropy had been reduced to their original no- 
thingness, the voice of oppressed and persecuted truth began 
on every side to make itself heard. I do not mean to refer 
in any particular way to that one celebrated writer who has 
consecrated his powerful eloquence entirely to the service of 
his religion. For however useful Chateaubriand may have 
been by representing Christianity in her most amiable form 
and her beneficial consequences, nay, however necessary 
such a writer as he is may have been to break the ice of in- 
fidf'lity in France, he has attached far too much to the sen 
sible and external part of religion, and I suspect, indeed, haa 
never penetrated into the deep and proper essence of out 
Christianity. 

29 



338 CHANGE IN FRENCH LITERATURE. 

Many attempts have been made in a quite different way 
to enlarge the mode of thinking, and estabhsh a higher spe- 
cies of philosophy in France. Even the efforts which have 
been made to introduce and naturalize the spirit of our Ger- 
man philosophers are worthy of much attention. They have 
been supported by the genius and erudition of several of the 
first and most celebrated Frenchmen of the age. The at- 
tempt, indeed, is stilj opposed by many serious and almost 
insurmountable obstacles. Perhaps the Germanizing French 
scholars have plunged too widely into the whole of our lite- 
rature, instead of thoroughly mastering, in the first instance, 
the principles and essence of our philosophical systems. A 
still more important difficulty is presented by the lingering 
tone of infidel thought, with which the general body of the 
nation is still, I fear, infected. The political establishment 
and external observances of religion are not sufficient for the 
purpose. Philosophy must proceed from, and return to, a 
sincere, and unalterable, and undoubting faith 

What I view as the most essential and important change 
in French literature of these last years, is the return to a 
higher morality, and that united system of Platonic and 
Christian philosophy, which stands exactly in the opposite 
extreme from the atheism of the preceding age. In some 
measure, even before the Revolution, and even in the period 
of the most entire corruption, this return had been begun. 
But it was not till after the whole system of thought had un- 
dergone a convulsion, that it began to manifest its perfect in- 
fluence. A few philosophers, cut off from their age, and 
superior to it, France at all times possessed. I may refer, in 
the first place, to Hemsterhuys, who, although not a French- 
man by birth, wrote entirely in this language ; and that, too, 
with so much grace and harmony, that even in this point oi 
view his Socratic dialogues are worthy of the noble spirit oi 
Platonism and Christianity which they express. The re- 
turn has, however, been most of all promoted by two very 
remarkable philosophers, men in all their views and prin- 
ciples thoroughly Christian. Of the one of these, St. Mar- 
tin, many writings were known even before the Revolution, 
and he was spoken of by the name of the unknoion philoso- 
pher ; the other, Bonald, has since that time become the best 



ST. MARTIN AND BONALD. 339 

and most profound champion of the old French monarchical 
constitution. Both, along with their good and excellent 
qualities, have many great and essential errors. They are 
full of French prejudices; and although despisers of the 
spirit of their own age, they have so much partaken in it as 
to be very unfit judges of ages and nations different from 
their own. Even the most essential parts of their philoso- 
phy bear witness at what period they wrote, and have a share 
of the spirit of the eighteenth century. The chief error of 
St. Martin consists in this, that he viewed religion entirely 
as a matter of individual revelation, and as having no con- 
nection whatever with forms, and the external church of 
God. For this, in the situation of things immediately be- 
fore or during the Revolution, there might, indeed, be some 
apology ; but the error is in itself a dangerous one, and has 
prevented, in a great measure, the powerful genius of St. 
Martin from producing the effect which might otherwise 
have been expected to follow its exertions. He belongs to 
the adherents of that oriental and Christian philosophy, 
which, as I have already said, although despised and ridi- 
culed by doctors and universities, has, ever since the Revolu- 
tion, been making silent but sure progress, in the spirit of 
the age. However little of the praise of invention may be 
due to St. Martin, and however much of error may be min- 
gled with all his ideas, it still must remain a very remark- 
able circumstance, that at the period when France was most 
filled with atheism, an unknown and solitary philosopher 
should have arisen, who devoted the whole of his talents to 
destroy the atheistical philosophy of the time, and substitute 
in its place the doctrines of divine revelation and ancient tra- 
dition — a Mosaic and Christian system of philosophy. It is 
no less remarkable, that at the very commencement of our 
century, while others were restoring religion merely for 
political purposes, and with a view to maintain the faith oi 
the ignorant, a learned jurist, and political philosopher, like 
Bonald, should have seriously made the attempt to found the 
theory of justice upon God alone, and that of government on 
the doctrines of the Bible. In a philosophical point of vieA\-, 
we may blame him for having too much confotmded and 
identified revelation with reason. But we must remember 



340 WILLIAM JONEs' WORKS. 

that he wrote in d country where these had been treated as 
not only distinct but irreconcileable means of knowledge. 
Many champions of Christianity have injured themselves by 
their too indiscriminating rejection of all philosophy. Bo- 
nald goes into the other extreme : he errs by making Chris- 
tianity too rational, and almost resolving it into reason. 
Truth itself, when waging war with error, is apt to go to 
the opposite extremity, and to regard the arguments of its 
adversaries in too narrow a point of view. After such errors 
and principles as those of the last century were, it is no 
wonder that the human mind should have received a shock 
sufficient to render it incapable of moving at once firmly and 
independently even in a better way. Such appears to have 
been the case with these illustrious Frenchmen, Bonald and 
St. Martin. 

Such a radical change in philosophy cannot easily occur 
in England. The great incidents of external life, commerce, 
and the British constitution, India and the Continent, en- 
gross the active intellect of this most active of all countries. 
There remains no talent or time for those pursuits of deeper 
thought and philosophy, in which, for these very reasons, 
the English are inferior at this moment to the French. 
Even in our ow^n days, however, there has been no want of 
illustrious writers, of men alike distinguished by research 
and eloquence, in England — these stand alone as tokens of 
the changing spirit of our time. William Jones has as yet 
had no rivals in the department which he selected ; no one 
appears to have comprehended, as he did, the antiquities of 
Asia, and above all of India, w^ith the acuteness of a philo- 
sopher, or to have seen the mode of reconciling every thing 
with the doctrine and history of the Scriptures. Were such 
paths pursued with spirit and power, the usual prejudices 
of British thought might be easily got rid of But if we 
are to praise a man in proportion to his usefulness, I am 
persuaded that no task could be more difficult than thai of 
doing justice to another Englishman, his contemporary, the 
statesman and orator Burke. This man has been to his 
own country, and to all Europe — in a very particular man- 
ner to Germany — a new light of political wisdom, and mo- 
ral experience. He corrected his age when it was at the 
height of its revolutionary frenzy; and without maintaining 



INFLUENCE OF BURKE S PHILOSOPHY, 341 

any system of philosophy, he seems to have seen farther into 
the true nature of society, and to have more clearly compre- 
hended the effect of religion in connecting individual secu- 
rity with national welfare, than any philosopher, or any sys- 
tem of phih sophy of any preceding age. 
29* 



LECTURE XV. 



RETROSPECT GERMAN PHILOSOPHY SPINOZA AND LEIBNITZ GERMAN 

LANGUAGE AND POETRY IN THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTCJ.. 

RIES LUTHER, HANS SACHS, JACOB BOHME OPITZ, THE SILESIAN 

SCHOOL CORRUPTION OF TASTE AFTER THE PEACE OF WESTPHALIA ; 

OCCASIONAL POETRY GERMAN POETS OF THE FIRST HALF OF THE 

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY FREDERICK THE SECOND ; KLOPSTOCK ; THE 

MESSIAD AND NORTHERN MYTHOLOGY THE CHIVALROUS POEMS OP 

WIELaND INTRODUCTION OF THE ANCIENT METRES OF QUANTITY INTO 

THE GERMAN LANGUAGE ; DEFENCE OF RHYME ADELUNG, GOTTSCHED, 

AND " THE (so CALLED) GOLDEN AGE" FIRST GENERATION OF THS 

LATER GERMAN LITERATURE, OR " THE PERIOD OF THE FOUNDERS.'' 



To some of my hearers it may appear as idle and super- 
fluous to write against the philosophy of the eighteenth cen- 
tury, as it would be to fight with the shadow of a departed 
enemy. In truth, however, the cases are not at all parallel 
ones, although I can easily suppose they may seem so to 
such as form their judgments entirely from the external ap- 
pearances of things. The evil is by no means annihilated, 
although it has become less .visible. In England the dis- 
ease of the age never broke out openly, and for that very 
reason has never been radically cured. In that country, as 
in France, there are a few illustrious exceptions, and sym- 
bols of a self regenerating age; symptoms of a gradual re- 
turn from error, and the invincible power and majesty of 
truth. But I fear those who are best able to judge will agree 
with me in suspecting that the general tone of thought, par- 
ticularl}^ among those who have the empire of literature in 
their hands, is not yet altered. Among the latest writers of 
France, the prevalence of the old system is still mnnifest ; 
the world and all its phenomena are still explained upon the 
old principles of the atomical and material philosophy. Of 
all the foolish hypotheses which have ever cheated Vhe liu 



STATE OF GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 343 

man intellect with the empty show of explanation, that of 
materialism is the most unsatisfactory. In a scientific point 
of view, it is void of foundation and fantastic ; m regard to 
morality, national Avelfare, and religion, its influences are 
utterly unworthy and pernicious. Although this system is 
now seldom pursued to its consequences, and although expe- 
rience has convinced all men how dangerous these inevita- 
bly are, yet we have still before our eyes the miserable 
spectacle of men entitled to every respect as natural philo- 
sophers, and J!istly occupying a high place in the intellec- 
tual scale of our age, w^ho disgrace all their knowledge by 
the most lamentable and childish ignorance respecting what- 
ever is most truly w^orthy of the name of philosophy. The 
cause of truth is gaining strength every day, but these men 
are not ashamed to advocate, at least by insinuatiisiis and ca- 
lumnies, the cause of her adversary. Such is t!r3 situation 
of affairs abroad. Here, in Germany, the comi:ion disease 
of the century, the false philosophy, and the mania for rea- 
son assumed quite a different appearance — a form of more 
temperance, and perhaps of less practical danger. We 
should err very much, nevertheless, if ^ve should imagine 
that the evil does not exist, or flatter ourselves that our dis- 
ease is entirely vanquished, merely because the symptoms 
have undergone a change. 

If the German philosophy did not fall into such violent 
extremes as the French, it was not guarded by the same 
strong feelings of nationality, w^hose influence I have al- 
ready described upon the English. The sentiment of na- 
tional union had before this time become quite extinct among 
the subjects of our innumerable petty states. But perhaps 
the very smallness of our states was in some measure the 
cause of our security. Every thing was conducted upon so 
small a scale, and was so much in the view of men, that no 
open or audacious adoption of any pernicious systems of in- 
justice, such as those of Hobbes or Machiav^el, could be ven- 
tured upon. Still, however, in private life, manners cer- 
tainly were becoming more relaxed, and so paving the most 
easy way for vicious theory. 

But the circumstance which preserved the German phil- 
osophy, at its commencement, from failing into the extreme 
of error, was, 1 imadne, the erudition of the German wri- 



344 SPINOSA AND LEIBNITZ. 

ters. These were in general full of recollections and ideas 
of tliat philosophy of antiquity, which had become entirely 
forgotten in France and England. Leibnitz was, in this 
point of view, a great blessing to his country. It is very 
true that he was a physician who made use of palliatives, 
but was incapable or unambitious of effecting a radical cure ; 
yet even this was much if we consider the wants of the time. 
He was a scholar as well as a philosopher, and his works 
contain innumerable points which call us back to those who 
preceded him. It is perhaps the chief fault of Leibnitz that 
he is too fond of reviving exploded difficulties, but even by 
{his defect of his, he has been the most admirable harbinger 
of men who felt within them the spirit, the call, and the 
passion, to plunge more deeply into all the labyrinths of 
bought, and all the secrets of knowledge. He marks the 
yoint of transition from the philosophy of the seventeenth to 
, \e new mode of thinking of the eighteenth century — one 
t. ( the most remarkable eras in the whole history of man- 
Vi^i. As he and his philosophy have never exerted much 
u i\:i8nce out of Germany, and have been little studied in 
Frarite, and not at all in England, I have thought fit to pass 
him 0''''^r in silence while treating of foreign philosophers, 
and recn^.ived him for a place by himself The same con- 
duct ha? been adopted in respect to his adversary Spinosa, 
because fee too has had a similar fate, has been little heard 
of either in his own country or in England, and not at all 
in France, but been zealously defended and attacked by Ger- 
mans alone. Spinosa's greatest error, that of making no 
distinction between God and the world, is one of the most 
pernicious natare. He denied to individual beings indepen- 
dence and self direction, and saw in them all only various 
manifestations of one eternal and all comprehending exis- 
tence ; he thus took personality from the Deity, and freedom 
from man. and by representing all that is immoral, untrue, 
and impious, as appearances, not realities, he went far to de- 
stroy ail distinction between good and evil. This error is so 
intimately connected with the doctrines of unassisted reason, 
that it is probab^f the very oldest of all the falsities which 
sprung up in the room of the truth originally communicated 
to mankinvi by \ s Maker. But Spinosa threw pantheism 
into a more K-i^'f* ific shape than it ever possessed before iiis 



THE jIORALiri' OF SPIXOSa 345 

time. The error itself is one so natural scientific and 
self-confident reason, that Descartes, from wnose system that 
of Spinosa immediately sprung, was prevented oni}^ by the 
want of depth and decision in his spirit, from falling- mto the 
abyss upon the brink of which he stood. In this, as in 
many other cases, we must be carefi.il to separate the error 
from the person. It frequently happens that he who first 
opens up a new path of error, who even thoroughly pre- 
pares it, and points it out in the most decided and fearless 
manner, is nevertheless far less dangerous than his followers 
who pursue the same track without the same confidence. 
The morality of Spinosa is not indeed that of the Bible, for 
he himself was no Christian, but it is still a pure and noble 
morahty resembhng that of the ancient Stoics, perhaps pos- 
sessing considerable advantages over that system. That 
which makes him strong when opposed to adversaries who 
do not understand or feel his depth, or who, unconsciously, 
have fallen into errors not much different from his. is not 
merel)- the scientific clearness and decision of his intellect, 
but in a much higher degree the open-heartedness, strong 
feeling and com-iction with which all that he says seems to 
gush from his heart and soul. We cannot call this a na- 
tural inspiration, such as that which animates the poet, the 
artist, or the naturalist, still less the inspiration of the super- 
natural world : for where can this find a place when there 
is no faith in an effective Deity? But it is a thorough and 
penetrating impression and feeling of the eternal which ac- 
companies him in all the ranges of his thought, and Hits him 
above the world of the senses. The remarkable error which 
lies at the root of all his philosophy is indeed a pernicious 
and detestable one, and it might appear as if notking could 
be worse. Yet if we compare the error of Spinosa with the 
atheism of the eighteenth century, we shall be at no loss to 
discover a mighty- difference between them. That material 
philosophy, if we must orive it such a name, which explains 
every thing by matter, and gives the first place to sense, is 
af. error which seems almost to lie lower than the region of 
humanity-. Rarely, amonsf particular individuals who have 
einbraced such a system, can there be much reason to hope 
for a return to truth ; although there can be no difficult}^ ip 
tonceiving that an age or nation, which has seen its permc 



346 THE PHILOSOPHY 01 LEIBNITZ.^ 

ious moral consequences openly displayed, should throw it 
off with abhorrence. The high spirituality, on the contrary, 
of that other error into which Spinosa fell, may well appear 
to leave greater means and more open paths for reformation. 
But, after all, an error is surely so much the more perni- 
cious, that it is fitted to seize on noble and intellectual disci- 
ples ; the immediate consequences are then not so practically 
dangerous, but the evil principle has by this means time to 
fasten itself more deeply, and sooner or later is sure to man- 
ifest the power of its corruption upon the whole either of an 
age or of a nation ; as that disease is the most fatal to the 
human body which makes its slow but steady attacks upon 
the very vitals of our frame. 

The philosophy of Leibnitz is almost entirely fastened up- 
on that of Spinosa. It is almost throughout a polemic phil- 
osophy ; and even when it does not assume the external form 
of controversy, its object is always to pull down the common 
philosophy of his age, to answer it, resolve its doubts, and 
supph^ its deficiencies : it is entirely devoted to the spirit and 
necessities of his time, and never comes forward in the inde- 
pendence and confidence of its own original power. The 
literary sceptic Bayle, and Locke, the founder of the sensa- 
tion system, were the principle adversaries of Leibnitz, to 
sav nothing of a few more personal opponents. But the 
most prominent of them all is Spinosa. with whom he fre- 
quently, nay, almost perpetually contends, even where he 
does not name him. as if with an invisible and dreadful ene- 
my. Of the philosophers A-\^th whom he agrees, and of the 
sources from which he derived a great part of his argu- 
ments, he says very little. It was no part of his character 
to recognize the existence of an eternal and spiritual world, 
whereof the sensible world is only the external vehicle and 
veil. His hypothesis, on the contrary, (according to which 
sensible objects are merely a perplexed chaos of solitary 
spiritual principles or monads, in a state of slumber, or im- 
nerfection.) coincides with, or at least stands at no very re- 
mote distance from, the atomical doctrine of Epicurus and 
the modern atheists, and is at the best only a sort of inter- 
mediate system between that and the proper belief in a spir- 
itual world. His attempt to solve the difficulties of the con- 
teiDTDorary philosophy c^ncerring the connection of the mind 



IDEAS OF TIME AND SPACE. 347 

and the: body, by saying that tfie common Creator ot Doth 
made tnem originally to go together, as a watchmaker night 
make two watches, is only a piece of ingenious sophistry, and 
tends to give a degrading view of the nobler part of our na^ 
ture. His celebrated Tkeodicee, or justification of God on 
account of the existence of moral evil, answers that question 
which so perpetually recurs to the natural reason, with the 
bold dexterity of a practised diplomatist, who conceives it to 
be his duty, to promote by every means, good, bad, or indif 
ferent, the cause of his master, and to conceal as much as 
possible from the eyes of his opponent any thing that seems 
favourable to the other side of the question. It is impossible 
for the philosophy of reason to answer the question concern- 
ing the existence of evil in the world, without either deny- 
ing the existence of evil in contradiction to our daily expe- 
rience, or ascribing its creation to the Deity, in contradiction 
to our own feeling and the voice of conscience. The solu- 
tion of Leibnitz (that of optimism) which gave so much 
room for the wit of Voltaire, has more lately found a coun- 
terpart in the theory of a celebrated philosopher, who ex- 
plains every thing upon a principle of which Leibnitz had 
no idea, who thinks that the only end for which the external 
world was created, was to afford the spirit room to exercise 
and develop itself and maintains that the worse the world 
is, the better is it adapted to serve this purpose. Neither this 
Spartan, nor that elaborate solution, is satisfactory either to 
feeling or to philosophy. 

In the Leibnitzian ideas concerning space and time, we 
have a remarkable evidence how entirely the views of the 
truest and highest philosophy were at that period forgotten. 
The philosophy of antiquity recognized in time and place an 
endless theatre for the display of the eternal, and of the liv- 
ing pulsation of eternal love. By the contemplation of such 
thmgs, ho-SA ever imperfect and inadequate, the natural, even 
the merely sensible man. was affected with a stupendous feel- 
ino- of admiration well calculated to prepare the way for re- 
ligious thoughts. It extended and ennobled his soul to re- 
gard, in such a manner as this, the past, the present, and the 
future. But Leibnitz saw in time and space nothing but the 
arrangement of contemporary or consecutive incidents. So 
apt are deadening and insignificant ideas to creep into the 



348 GERMAN LANGUAGE AND POETRT. 

place of living and just feeling, in all that is most fitted to 
elevate man above the world of the senses. The philosophy 
of Leibnitz was brought into fash, to in Germany, and es- 
tablished in the schools, chiefly by means of Wolf; this cir- 
cumstance is sufficient to characterize it. A seel which lays 
hold of active life, is judged by the direction which it pur- 
sues, and the consequences which it produces. But the 
spirit of a sect confined to schools soon becomes a mere being 
of formality : Aristotle, Descartes, Leibnitz, or Kant, is called 
the master, and the ideas are said to be his, but in truth they 
are no longer ideas as they were in him ; they are mere 
formulas. Germany, nevertheless, has to thank this scholas- 
tic system for preventing, or at least checking, the introduc- 
tion of the yet more dangerous sectarian spirit of the atheis- 
tical philosophy of the senses ; and after ail, the pedantry 
was not of long duration. Leibnitz himself, although he 
wrote mostly in Latin and French, gave quite a new spring- 
to the study of the German language, history, and antiqui- 
ties; and even Wolf's German writings were of considerable 
service to the language. They were followed by some who, 
although belonging to their school, had both originality of 
thought, and power of writing ; and these, along with a few 
better poets than had lately appeared, first brought our lan- 
guage out of the state of barbarism into which it had fallen. 
They prepared the way for Klopstock, who arose in the 
middle of the last century, and became the founder of a new 
epoch, the master and father of the present literature of Ger- 
nany. 

But before I proceed to depict Klopstock, I must direct 
your eyes to a short review of the period which intervened 
between the old and new literature of our country. The 
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries produced indeed few great 
German writers, but these few are, on account of the rarity 
the more worthy of our attention. I have already explained 
in what way the chivalrous poetry and art of the middle 
age were lost during the controversies of the sixteenth, and 
how our language itself became corrupted during the long 
continued civil wars by which the internal peace of our 
country was so cruelly agitated and convulsed. There wag 
one instrument by which the influx of barbarism was op- 
posed, and one treasure wliich made up for what had been 



LUTHER S VERSION OF THE BIBLK. 349 

lost — I mean the German translation of the Bible. It is 
well known to you that all true philologists regard this as 
the standard and model of classical expression in the High 
Dutch language; and that not only Klopstock, but many 
other writers of the first rank, have fashioned their style, and 
selected their phrases according to the rules of this version 
It is worthy of your notice, that in no other modern language 
have so many Biblical words and phrases come into the use 
of common life, as in ours. I perfectly agree with these 
writers who consider this circumstance as a fortunate one ; 
and I believe, that from it has been derived not a little of 
that power, life, and simplicity, by which I think the best 
German writers are distinguished from all other moderns. 
The Catholic as well as the modern Protestant scholar, have 
many things to find fault with in this translation ; but these 
after all regard only individual passages wherein Luther 
erred, either by writing in the spirit of his own sect and con- 
trary to the old doctrines of the Christian church, or from a 
want of knowledge in history, physics, or geography. In 
these later times we have witnessed an attempt to render a 
new and rational translation of the Bible an instrument of 
propagating the doctrines of the iliuminati ; and we have 
seen this too much in the hands even of Catholics themselves. 
But the instant this folly had blown over, we returned with 
increased affection to the excellent old version of Luther. 
Luther himself has not indeed the whole merit of producing 
it. He only selected the best parts of translations existing 
before his time, and he was assisted in this labour by several 
of his friends, in particular by the indefatigable Melancthon. 
We owe to him, nevertheless, the highest gratitude for plac- 
ing in our hands this most noble and manly model of Ger- 
man expression. Even in his own writings he displays a 
most original eloquence surpassed by few names that occur 
in the whole history of literature. He had, indeed, all those 
properties wh'ch render a man fit to be a revolutionary orator. 
This revolutioimry eloquence is manifest, not only in his 
half-political and business writings, such as the Address to 
ilie Nobility of the German Nation^ but in all the works 
which he has left behind him. In almost the whole of them 
we perceive the marks of mio-hty internal conflict. Two 
worlds appear to be contending for the mastery over the 
30 



350 INFLUENCE OF LUTHER. 

mig-hty soul of this man so favoured by God and nature 
Throughout all his writings there prevails a struggle be- 
tween light and darkness, faith and passion, God and him- 
self The choice which he made — the use to which he de- 
voted his majestic genius — these are subjects upon which it 
a even now quite impossible for me to speak so as to please 
you all. For myself I am free to acknowledge, that I can 
never regard either his writings or his life, except with some 
portion of that compassion which is due to a great nature 
led astray by over-confidence in its own vigour. As to the 
intellectual power and greatness of- Luther, abstracted from 
all consideration of the uses to which he applied them, I 
think there are few even of his own disciples who appreciate 
him highly enough. His coadjutors were mostly mere 
scholars, indolent and enlightened men of the common order. 
It Avas upon him and his soul that the fate of Europe de- 
pended. He was the man of his age and his nation. 

Luther was thoroughly a popular writer. No country 
in Europe can boast of so many remarkable, comprehensive, 
powerful, and extraordinary writers for the common people, 
as Germany. However much the higher orders of Germa- 
ny were inferior, or however lately they came up to those 
of France, England, and Italy, it is certain that the common 
people of none of these countries has displayed so much pro- 
foundness of intellect, and natural power of mind, as that of 
our own nation. It is an old saying, that the power of 
kings is given by God; it is an equally old one, and one 
quite as worthy of being kept in mind, that the voice of the 
people is the voice of God. Both are clear, perfect, and 
true : wo to those who disregard, or would mislead this ora- 
cle of the Deity ! They are much to be pitied who con- 
ceive that they are capable, by the tricks of empty and vain 
politics, of leading the people entirely according to their 
own selfish and unworthy purposes and desires. The peo- 
ple is wiser than they imagine, and far wiser than them- 
sehes. The people sees through their tricks, and will not 
easily be deceived. But of all men they surely are guilty 
of the greatest crime who would make use of the natural 
power of our people for the purposes of destruction and con- 
vulsion. This strength must indeed be appalling, should it 
ever be directed by any other guides than those it has as yet 



THE TEUTONIC PHILOSOPHY. 351 

o>>eyed, — obedience to the precepts, and faith in the doctrines 
of religion. Narrow must their judgrnent be who conceive 
that this power is extinct, because it is seldom visible. It is 
the inheritance of our ancestors, and can never be thrown 
away; Dut like many of the other hidden powers of nature, 
it is too great to be often manifested. 

The popular writing of northern Germany was by no 
means confined to religious subjects, (as in Luther's works,) 
but embraced also j>oetry and philosophy. I shall for the 
present mention only two of the most remarkable authors, 
the celebrated Meisiersanger of Nurnberg, and that Chris- 
tian visionary who was so much celebrated throughout Eu- 
rope, about the time of the thirty years' war under the name 
of the Teutonic philosopher. 

In popular songs and poems the possessions of Germany 
are abundant. The popular poetry is generally of two 
kinds; it consists in part of^cmgs, solitary fragments of a 
departed age of heroism and chivalry, whose recollections 
have been disturbed and broken by the revolutions of exter- 
nal events, or have become exploded in consequence of the 
gradual change in the modes of our social life and ideas; 
in part of the productions of the vulgar themselves, — ^and 
this is the most striking division of the popular poetry of 
Germany. The master of Nurnberg was an artificer in 
poetry as well as in common life. He is however a writer 
full of power and fancy ; he possesses abundance of wit and 
shrewdness, and if we are to compare him with the early 
writers of other languages, he is I think more inventive than 
Chaucer, more rich than Marot, and more poetical than 
either. In regard to our language, his works form a trea- 
sure, of which no proper use has as yet been made. 

The same remark may be applied to Jacob Bohme, that 
Teutonic philosopher, who is so much ridiculed by the ge- 
neral race of literary men. These are themselves sensible 
that they understand neither the good nor the bad that is in 
his writings ; but they are ignorant that they know abso- 
lutely nothing either respecting the man himself, or the re- 
lation in which he stood to his contemporaries. I have, on 
a former occasion, shewn you what my opinion is respect- 
ing the eflfects of philosophy being cultivated by the common 
people, and neglected b} the higher orders of a nation. Such. 



352 JACOB BOHME AND OPITZ. 

however was actually the case at that period, both in Pro 
testant Germany and in England. Jacob Bohme is com- 
monly called a dreamer, and it is very true, that in his writ- 
tngs there may be more marks of an ardent imagination 
ihan of a sound judgment. But we cannot at least deny 
this strange man the praise of a very poetical fancy,.. If we 
should consider him merely as a poet, and compare him 
with those other Christian poets, who have handled subjects 
connected with the supernatural world, with Klopstock, with 
Milton, or even with Dante, we shall find that he rivals the 
best of them, in fulness of fancy and depth of feeling, and 
that he falls little below them, even in regard to individual 
beauties, and poetical expression. Whatever defects may 
be found in the philosophy of Jacob Bohme, the historian 
of German literature can never pass over his name in si- 
lence. In few w^orks of any period have the strength and 
richness of our language been better displayed than in his. 
His language possesses indeed a charm of nature, simplicity, 
and unsought vigour, ^vhich we should look for in vain, in 
the tongue which we now speak, enriched as it is by the 
immense importation of foreign terms, and the invented 
phraseologies of our late philosophers. 

The permanent effects produced by the thirty years' war 
upon our literature were extremely hurtful; but there is 
no doubt that, while it actually raged, it operated as an awak- 
ener and animator of German intellect. The Silesian 
Opitz arose in the midst of it, and gave to our language and 
poetry a direction Avhich has since found many imitators. 
His immediate models were sought from Holland, a coun- 
try which at that, time possessed a Hugo Grotius, w^hich 
was not only the most learned and enlightened of all Pro- 
testant states, but also rich and cultivated in its poetry, and 
abounding in vernacular tragedies composed after the an- 
tique model, a considerable time before the great French 
tragedians were fostered in the court of Lewis XIV. Yet 
the excellence of Opitz is quite independent of what he bor- 
row^ed from any foreign literature, from the Dutch tragedies, 
and the pastoral romances of the Spaniards. Even his dra- 
matic attempts, free translations, or imitations of the Greek 
and Italian theatres, have not produced any effect. The 
truth i" *bat in the very best and most original of his lyri* 



THE WORKS OF FLEMMING AND OTHERS. 353 

cal, miscellaneous, and didactic poems, we should always 
regard more what he was fitted by nature to be, wnat he 
desired, and felt, and aspired to, than what he really was. 
He is com.mionly called the father of German poetry; it ap- 
pears to me that, at least since Klopstock, few of the sons 
have been grateful enough to cultivate much acquaintance 
with this parent. If any mjan was ever formed by nature 
to be a heroic poet, this was Opitz. He felt this, and wish- 
ed to be the heroic poet of the German nation. But his life 
was spent amidst the perplexities and agitations of a tumul- 
tuous period, and he died in early manhood before he had 
time to complete either his purposes or his poetry. Through- 
out all his works, imperfect as they are, there break forth 
flashes and emanations of that course of thought and great- 
ness of soul which create a heroic poet: and even in regard 
to language, those noble sentiments and strong thoughts of 
Opitz are in general expressed with an artless simplicity 
and naivete, which, I think, have not since been equalled. 
His style is superior to that of Klopstock. 

Next to Opitz, the most distinguished of the Sile«ian poets 
of this period is Flemming. His poetry is intensely per- 
sonal ; it is filled with rhe inspiration of his own friendships, 
passions, and loves. His life was worthy of his being so 
celebrated : he travelled through the then unknown interior 
of Russia into Persia, and has described all that he saw or 
experienced during this interesting journey, v/ith the most 
glowing feeling, and a truly oriental splendour of fancy. In 
style, however, he is quite inferior to Opitz. It is much to 
be regretted, that both of these men were, after all, or were 
at least held to be, not national, but provincial poets, not 
Germans, but Silesians. After the unfortunate civil war. 
whose flames, fed by the participation or policy ot ttie half 
of Europe, wasted and devoured our country for thirty years 
after the still more miserable peace of 1648, the strength of 
the German nation was broken, and Germun poetry shared 
in the general decline. Its substance and life were fled, and 
it soon degenerated into a mere artificial and fantastic display 
of insignificant thoughts upon worthless subjects. The first 
mtroducer of the false taste was Hoffrnanswaldau, but it was 
rendered general by the more powerful talents of Lohen- 
stein. This period, from 1648 to the middle of last century, 



354 THE SILESIAN SCHOOL. 

was our proper age of barbarism, a sort of division and cha^ 
otic interregnum in the history of German literature. Our 
language hesitated between a species of would-be French 
and wavering German, and was. with all this weakness, full 
of affectation and artifice. Even in a political point of view, 
the most degraded and unfortunate period of our history i? 
that immediately subsequent to the peace of Westphalia. 
With the beginning of the eighteenth century the power of 
Germany began again to revive. Austria again attained 
the summit of strength and glory, some of the first thrones 
in Europe were ascended by princes of German houses, and 
one of them founded in Germany itself, a new and splendid 
monarchy. All these circumstances, particularly when 
taken together, could scarcely fail to produce a reviving and 
quickening effect on the intellect, language, and manners of 
our country. Many princes were compelled, even by con- 
siderations of mere political interest, to become the patrons 
of science. These causes did operate, but not speedily; they 
were opposed by man}^ serious obstacles; above all, by the 
deep-rooted corruption which had extended itself through all 
the German notions of art and st^^le. The first in thought 
and language of the better lyrical poets of the eighteenth 
century, resembled in a great measure their predecessors ol 
the seventeenth, and devoted themselves entirely to the occa- 
sional poetry of gallantry, court, festival, and panegyaic. 
Those of them who paid the greatest attention to style, 
Hagedorn. and after him Utz, Avere more addicted to imita- 
tion, and certainly very happy imitation, of French and 
English poets, than to the open expression of their own 
feelings and passions. Those who, by a higher tone of in- 
spiration, like Haller, or by a more graceful and elegant 
fertility, hke Gleim, are most deserving of the name of poets, 
are, in respect of language, always careless, frequently cor- 
rupt. At the same time, they must be regarded, even in 
respect to language and its construction alone, as great and 
meritorious, when compared with the state of barbarism into 
which the taste and judgment of the time immediately pre- 
ceding them had fallen. They must receive siill greater 
admiration, when we reflect on the unfavourable circum- 
stances of some of their lives. Several of these first revisers 
of the German language and poetry died in very early life ; 



INFLUENCE OF FREDERICK II. 355 

such was the fate of Kleist, who was pe ihaps the greatest 
genius of them all, of Kronenk, and of Elias Schlegel; 
others devoted their chief attention to the bustle of active 
life, or passed into foreign countries and forgot their destiny. 
They all felt the want of a point of union, and looked for it 
in vain from the youthful hands of Frederick the Second. 
It is common of late to justify the conduct of this monarch, 
by asserting that at the time when he arose, the language 
and poetry of his country was really in such a state, that 
they could not possibly be viewed with any thing but con 
tempt and aversion by one of so much talent as he possessed. 
There is, hoAvever, no foundation in fact, for such a plea : 
what might not have been donefor German literat^u'c by a 
prince, in whose time (and some of them too in whose owm 
dominions) there arose and flourished such men as Klop- 
stock, Winkelman. Kant, and Lessing ? Where, in any 
age. could better materials have been found, and what w^ere 
the foreign favourites of Frederick (Voltaire alone excepted) 
when placed by the side of these great resuscitators of sci- 
ence and art ? What was a Maupertuis. or a La JMetrie ? — 
the mere moh of French literati. We may well excuse 
Klopstock for expressing, with somewhat of keenness of 
personal resentment, his indignation for the unmerited con- 
tempt poured upon the language and literature of his 
country. He felt and expressed this with bitter severity, 
when he instituted a comparison between Frederick and 
Caesar. In the time of .Tulius, more Greek, good bad or 
indifferent, was written at Rome, than French in Germany 
during the whole of the eighteenth century. The Roman 
language possessed at that period as few classical Avorks as 
the German did before 1750. And yet Caesar thought it 
well worth his while to devote the most careful attention to 
his mother tongue^ nay, to be himself, a Roman philologer 
and Grammarian. And it Avas thus that he made himself 
one of the first of orators and of waiters, distinctions which 
no man can ever reach who makes use of a foreign dialect. 
But upon the whole, w^e should perhaps scarcely regret the 
xvant of such an union of German Avriters as Frederick had 
It m his power to effect. Individuals would indeed have 
written better and more easily, but it may be that the litera- 
ture as a \^liole might have suffered, that it might nave 



35n THE GENIUS OF KLOPSTOCK. 

been narrowed in its spirit and comprehension, and become 
the affair of a province rather than of the whole German 
people. We should have paid dearly for a somewhat more 
rapid development by sacrificing what constitute at this mo- 
ment the chief excellence of our writers — riches and free- 
dom. But the whole of the argument in defence of Freder- 
ick proceeds upon a wrong* view of the subject. If kings 
are to defer their patronage of national literature till such 
time as there are in the country abundance of elegant and 
perfect writers, the utmost which it can be in their power to 
effect, must be the establishment of some tame and unprofit- 
able academy. The monarch who is ambitious to befriend 
and guide the intellect of his people, must foster and cherish 
talents not yet completely developed, and furnish young men 
with the instruments and opportunities of distinction. We 
may pardon the zeal of Klopstock, for he had in his own person 
abundant experience of the neglect of princes. He was con- 
scious to himself of a genius capable of diffusing new spirit 
and life not over poetry alone, but over all the departments 
of literature. The evil influence of Voltaire over France 
was not more extensive than the good influence of Klop- 
stock might have been over Germany, had he been supplied 
with room, occasion, means, and instruments worthy of his 
genius. 

Klopstock stood conspicuous, and almost alone in the 
German literature of his time, in respect of his intensely 
national feelings, feelings with which few of his contempo- 
raries sympathized, and which still fewer could understand. 
It was his ambition to transfer these German feelings into 
poetry. With the Messiad the new literature of our country 
may be said to begin ; so immeasurable have been the bene- 
fits derived from it, particularly in respect to style and expres- 
sion, although the poem is now admired chiefly wpon trusty 
or has not at least become a work of true power and living 
feelmg in our hands. The plan labours under thp same 
disadvantages which I have described as inseparable from 
all poems of this species. Klopstock's most successful poe- 
try is that conceived in the spirit of elegy. Every gradation, 
blending, and depth of elegiac feeling is handled by him 
with the power and ease of a master ; however far he pur- 
sues the stream of his melancholy reflections, he never 



HIS IDEA OF A NEW FOETRY. 357 

doubts, nor nee Is to doubt, that his readers will willingly 
Ib'Jow him, and deliver up their spirits to his control. 
Me calls forth the most melting of our sympathies even 
for a fallen spirit — Abbadona. There is another element 
which enters as largely, but far less happily into the com- 
position of his poetry. In prose he is a Avriter who errs 
by being too sententious, brief, and epigrammatic ; but in 
poetry he indulges in a verbose and eieborate species ol 
rhetoric, which often destroys in a very great measure the 
effect of his feeling. Both Milton and Virgil are charge- 
able with the same defect, but Klopstock has carried it 
much farther than either of them. We may allow him to 
assume that his heavenly personages make use of human 
nay, of German language, but we can with difficulty sup- 
pose that beings of so elevated a nature can Avaste their time 
in such frivolous and long-winded conversations as occur in 
the Messiad. 

That neither the nation nor the poet himself was satisfied 
with the iVIessiad as a whole, is sufficiently proved by the 
very great dissimilarity of the first and second halves of the 
poem. 

There lay in the spirit of Klopstock, a lofty idea of a new 
and eminently German poetry. His mighty hand put an 
end to the greatest reproach of our literature ; he demon- 
strated that Christianity on the one hand, and Gothic mytho- 
logy and antiquity on the otlier, must be the main elements 
of all new European poetry and inspiration. In his time 
the scholars of Denmark were zealously employed in bring- 
ing into notice the northern mythology and the Edda: and 
Klopstock himself was willing to take a part in their la- 
bours. But the small lyrical poems and odes by which 
he attempted to promote their views were not the propei 
means for accomplishing- it. The Danish poets were wisei 
in adopting the department of narrative and descriptive, 
poetry 

To the Herman of Klopstock, next to the INIessiad, his 
most considerable poem, the same general remarks may be 
applied which I have already made concerning the elegiac 
spirit of all his poetry, and the abuse of rhetorical acuteness. 
As a drama is calculated for a future and ideal theatre noi 
foi the actual theatre either of his time or of ours, which 



358 THE POETRY OF KLOFSTOCK. 

seems to reg-ard with a favourable eye all manner of pleaiitiire 
and purpose rather than the poetical. Klopstock seized and 
felt only the two extreme points of German poetry ; he over- 
looked all that lies in the middle between the Christian and 
the northern, and all that is produced by the blending of 
these two elements, — the whole middle age, the thousand or 
■twelve hundred years, which intervened between Attila and 
that peace ' of Westphalia, of which, so much against our 
wishes, we are compelled to make an epoch both in litera- 
ture and in history. He omitted, therefore, to survey the 
region of all others most fruitful and most obvious, the only 
one upon which poetry ever can be established so as to be- 
come a matter of historical and national influence in our 
eyes. This great blank which Klopstock left, many sub- 
sequent writers have attempted to fill up ; particularly Bod- 
mer as a scholar, and Wieland as a poet. Bodmer was pas- 
sionately fond of the old romantic chivalrous poetry, and was 
the first who brought the riches of Germany in that depart- 
ment into light ; although he adopted a method which was 
ill calculated to hasten the effects he wished to produce. The 
poetry of Wieland was entirely devoted to the romantic, 
which had been left untouched by Klopstock. It is true, 
that a historical romantic poem, after the manner of Tasso, 
not perhaps founded on the Crusades, but on some other of 
the rich poetical materials of the middle age, might have 
been a better and more effectual instrument, than an entirely 
fanciful and playful subject, such as that of Oberon. But 
notwithstanding all this, and in spite of many absurd modern 
things which he has interwoven, the services of Wieland 
have been eminently useful in recovering romantic feelings. 
It is a shame and a pity that one who had recreated in so 
glorious a manner the minstrelsy of the Provencial period, 
should have so soon laid poetry aside. This is the greatest 
reproach v/aich can be made to the poet of Oberon, that he 
who, had he acted wisely, might have become the German 
A.riosto, or the rival of the Italian one, should have stopped 
to be the imitator of such a prose writer as Crebillon. In 
prose it is quite evident that his style and expressions are 
vastly inferior to what they appear in his verses. I believe 
that when all his Greek romances are forgotten, the fame of 
Wieland will still be supported by his Oberon. 



THE GENIUS OF GESSNER. 359 

01 the other poets of the first generati-in, the mosi ongiual 
is Gessner. But he deals in a species of poetry too remote 
from actual life, and too de ^oid of any precise species of my- 
thology. He wanders therefore in a world of shades^ and 
every thing assumes in his hands the appearance of a tamo 
uniformity. A contempt of rhyme and metre may harmo- 
nize well enough with such a sort of poetry, but it also pro- 
motes and cherishes its most characteristic errors and dt feels. 

In one respect alone the doctrine and example of Klop- 
stock operated unfavourably upon the German language. 
In order to recall a language out of a situation of entire cor- 
ruption, few better means can be selected than the introduc- 
tion of severe, eleborate, and foreign forms of writing. These 
at first indeed produce the appearance of restraint and diffi- 
culty, but they destroy the prevalent absurdities of careless- 
ness. The ancient hexameter measure accords well with 
our language, and ours is the only modern language in 
which it is tolerable. But with whatever excellent effects 
the introduction of foreign forms may be attended, they 
should be still regarded merely as exercises. He who would 
create a truly national poem must choose a national and fa- 
mJliar measure. The accents of a foreign metre do not come 
upon the ear with the effect of domestic influence, or fasten 
themselves in the memory and heart of the readers. The 
hexam-.eter, when carelessly executed, displeases scholars, 
and when written with accuracy, appears monotous and 
wearisome to ordinary readers. The Messiad is prevented 
by its import from becoming an universal favourite. But 
for this I should consider the measure in which it is written 
as the great cause of its unpopularity. 

It was a great error in an illustrious poet, such as K lop- 
stock, to hate and banish rhyme. It is well that he has not 
suceeeded in all that he w^ished to effect. It was a most ab- 
surd thing to suppose that rhyme, a custom which has been 
familiarised to German ears by nine hundred or a thousand 
years, and which has become entwisted among the vepy roots 
of our language, could be thrown off with so much ea.se 
Besides rhyme is not merely an adventitious habit, it it> 
founded on the very nature of Teutonic speech. Klopstock 
conceived that the most ancient German songs and poems 
were rhymatical, but without rhyme: But he was mistaken. 



360 THE. PHILOLOGY OF WIELAND. 

it is true that they are without that regular rhyme at the end 
of lines which we now use, but they all possess that species 
of repetition of sound, which is alike observable in the Islan- 
dic Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian, old English, and old Saxon 
poets, which goes by the name of alliteration, and of which 
even in the latest poetry of Germany and England, the tra- 
ces are abundantly manifest. The transition from this kind 
of rhyme to ours was a very easy one. Rhyme is not in- 
deed so necessary in our language as in the unmusical one 
of France, but it is intermingled with the very foundation of 
our speech, and has entered long since into our pronuncia- 
tion. Wieland deserves much praise for restoring rhyme, 
and putting an end to that mania for blank endings and un- 
satisfactory metres, which are introduced by Klopstock, 
which was tolerated in him, but utterly disgusting in the 
hands of his imitators. 

Wieland's love of philological pursuits led him sometimes 
into bigoted paradox, and the same thing may be said of a 
much greater philologer than he was — Adelung. I am far 
from wishing to deny the merits and talents of this great 
etymologist; but in our time it is no longer easy to overlook 
such monstrous absurdities as some of those into which he 
fell ; that, for instance, of confining the pure High Dutch 
language entirely to the limits of the old Margravate of 
Meissen, and of despising Klopstock, who was the first 
writer among his own contemporaries, nay, the first master 
of the German language which had then appeared. 

How relative the idea of a golden period must always be, 
at least in respect to our literature, we have now had many 
examples ; Gotlsched fixed it in the age of Frederick the 
first King of Prussia, and talked of Besser, Neukirch, and 
Pietch, as if they were to be in German literature, what 
Virgil is in the Roman, and Corneille and Racine in the 
French. These writers are now, however, regarded with- 
out any of the enthusiastic admiration of Gottsched. So 
convinaed was he that human intellect and German poetry 
had at that time reached their summit, that he persuaded 
himself he could see all around him the marks of a decline, 
and he wrote in such terms as these in the year 1751, the 
very years in which the first part of the Messiad was pub- 
lished. The poets whom he praised so highly produced 



LESSING AND VVINKLEMANN. 36i 

only odes and small pieces; but a literature can never reach 
its perfection till it can boast of a great epic poem and a 
great history. We must be grateful to those earlier writers 
for the care with which they purified our language, but they 
were only preparing the way for the more stately march of 
those who came after them. The rapid and yet gradual im- 
provement which occurred in our last century is indeed a 
iubject which carmot be considered by us with too much 
satisfaction. There is no privileged period in which the 
great change took place. The earliest works of Lessing 
can scarcely be said to be written in the same language of 
which he lived to make use. From 1750 till 1800, a con- 
stant succession of works appeared in Germany, of which, 
although few are perfect, there' are none that have not added 
both strength and elegance to the language in which they 
are composed. 

Although the Avhole of this period has been distmguished 
by unintermitted fertility, there is no difficulty in classing 
our writers into their different generations. Each of these 
generations has its own characteristic excellencies and de- 
fects, derived in general from the situation or circumstances 
of the time, rather than from the genius of the individuals. 

In the first generation I class those writers whose deve- 
lopment and first exertions occurred between the years 1750 
and 1760. My limits do not permit me to enumerate the 
whole even of those who are entitled to great respect. I 
have already touched on the most celebrated. But I can- 
not pass over in silence the learned Jesuit Denis, who should 
be remembered with peculiar honour by my audience, be- 
cause it was he who first introduced into the literature of 
Austria that pure taste which had been created in the north 
by Klopstock. 

Of prose writers, many of those philosophers whom I 
shall mention hereafter belong to the first generation; even 
Kant himself, if we consider the period of his birth, and the 
nature of his earliest writings. The most distinguished 
were Lessing and Winkelmann. 

The writers of this period exhibit many traces of the un- 
fortunate state into which German literature had fallen in 
the age immediately preceding their own. With what dif- 
ficulties Winklemann had to con-tend before he succeeded 
31 



363 kant's philosophy. 

in forming- his ricli and exquisite style, we may learn from 
the perusal of his youthful letters. Kant's mode of writing 
bears innumerable marks of long, hard, and severe labour. 
The juvenile works, in particukr the poems, of Lessing 
should be considered merely as a tribute paid by a man of 
genius to the spirit of his age. Even Kiopstock, however 
much he is to be admired, would, without doubt, have been 
far better, had he been preceded by writers of great emi- 
nence. 

Such were the injurious consequences produced on the 
writers of the first generation, by the miserable state of Ger- 
man literature at the period when they made their appear- 
ance. We must not forget, however, that the difficulties 
with which they had to contend stimulated them to exertions 
of power and greatness to which they might not otherwise 
have aspired. They were obliged to concentrate all their 
powers upon one point ; this was the case with Kiopstock, 
Winkelmann, and, in another way, with Kant. More lately 
our literature, and above all our poetry, has lost that tone of 
severe simplicity and dignity which distinguished the best 
authors of the first generation. The admirable works of 
Winkelmann may perhaps have been very instrumental in 
producing this effect. The beautiful and the tasteful have 
become too exclusively the object and passion of our writers. 
We must return to the still more exalted inspiration of aa- 
donal feeling and religion. 



LECTURE XVI. 



GENERAL REVIEW SECOND GENERATION GERMAN CRITICISM LESSJNQ 

AND HERDER LESSTNG AS A PHILOSOPHER FREE-THINKING AND THE 

ILLUMINATI THE EMPEROR JOSEPH THE SECOND CHARACTER OF THE 

THIRD GENERATION THE PHILOSOEHY OF KANT GOETHE AND SCHIL- 
LER ANTICIPATION FICHTE AND TIECK TRUE CHARACTER OF GER- 

MAN LITERATURE CONCLUSION. 



Those who are best able to form an opinion concerning 
the modern literature of Germany, are sensible that its prin- 
cipal defect is its want of harmony. To point out in a 
general way where this harmony should be sought, and 
wherein alone it may be found, might seem perhaps to be 
no very difficult task. But I know not that it could be pro- 
ductive of much good to point out the remote termination, 
unless we could accompany this with some directions as to 
the way which must lead to it, some warnings concerning 
the bye-paths which deflect from it, the obstacles which in- 
terrupt, and the dangers which surround it. Before we think 
of solving the problem, we must first thoroughly compre- 
hend it in all its extent and all its difficulty; we must dis- 
cover the extremities of the several cords, and follow them 
through all the mazes of their intertexture, ere we need hope 
to loosen the Gordian knot of our literature. 

The nearer we come to our own time, the more am 1. 
obliged to contract the extent of my researches, and to dwell 
less upon the characters of individuals, and confine myself 
to the universal progress and rwlmg spirit of intellect and 
letters. The time is not yet comie for a complete history of 
German literature. Many things will not appear in their 
just light, till the nature of their consequences has be^n 
more fully developed. It is impossible to raise the structure 
ill the materials be at our disposal. 



864 GENERAL REVIEW. 

1 liave already attempted to depict, in ar^eneral manner 
the most illustrious poets of the first generation. In order 
that I may adhere as closely as may be to the order of 
chronoiog-y. I shall defer for a little my view of the philo- 
sophers, and other prose writers, their contemporaries, be- 
cause neither of the most celebrated of them, Lessing and 
Kant, began to exert an effectual influence upon the general 
mind till somewhat later. 

After the long feuds between Austria and Prussia had at 
last terminated in a durable peace, Germany enjoyed a num- 
oer of years of repose alike salutary to her states, her sciences, 
and her intellect. At one time, indeed, it seemed as if this 
quiet was about to be broken ; but the danger was a transi- 
tory one, and Germany continued to flourish in the enjoy- 
ment of peace and her own power, without being conscious 
at the time, to what causes she was indebted for the happi- 
ness of her condition. 

The first establishers of our literature, and purifiers of 
our language and poetry, who either immediately preceded 
or immediately followed Klopstock, and devoted their lives 
to the same purposes which he always kept in view, Avere 
placed in a situation of no ordinary difficulty. Many of the 
obstacles which were opposed to them they overcame; their 
honourable toils prepared and smoothed the path: even the 
errors and defects which may be remarked in them have 
warned and o-uided their successors, and are deserving- of the 
respect of posterity. 

It need not surprise us to find, that the second generation 
of German poets and writers, whose genius was first devel- 
oped about the year 1770, have an appearance of boldness 
and fecility to which their predecessors were strangers. 
They used and inherited what the labours of the first gener- 
ation had founded and created. The most distinguished 
poets of this epoch are Goethe, Stolberg, Voss, Burger ; to 
these I might add the names ot a few other individuals who 
were nearly or exactl^r their contemporaries, and who, by 
their genius, are well entitled to stand beside them, although, 
either from tne character of their works, or from the inci- 
dents of their own lives, they have not been able to obtain 
an equally splendid portion of celebrity. It is t^ery true 
that along with these there arose, at that period, a band oi 



SECOND GENERATION. 365 

popular writers, very inferior to them, whose writings have 
almost brought the time of their production into some con- 
tempt. But that this epoch was in itself one of the most 
brilliant and fruitful in the whole course of our literarj' his- 
tory, it is not possible to doubt. We need only remember 
that in addition to those I have named, Jacobi, Lavator, 
Herder, and John Muller, both by the date and character of 
their works, belong to this epoch ; men whose fame is not 
confined to Germany, but has, in part at least, been echoed 
by every country in Europe. The writers of the second 
generation are, both in spirit and in style, entirely difftrent 
from those who went before them. Their method of writing 
is full of soul, fire, and life ; abundant in animation and wdt, 
original, new, and, in many respects, exquisite. They want, 
however, uniformity, regularity, and a standard: and are 
often chargeable with a neglect of the necessary purity of 
language. This is true even of Herder and John Muller, 
the most erudite, as well as the most comprehensive, spirits 
of their day. It might almost seem as if the adherents of 
the first generation were right in asserting, that purity of 
language is, if not exclusively, at least principally, the por- 
tion of those whom they admire. But this must not be ta- 
ken in its fullest extent ; in some writers, and particularly 
some poets of the second epoch, in Voss, in Stolberg, and 
in many of the works of Goethe, the purity of language is 
found in all its strictness and perfection ; more so than per- 
haps in any writers or poets of the first generation. The 
carefulness of Voss in respect to language is such as to ren- 
der his style, on some occasions, painful and hard ; and if it 
be true, that in many of the minor works, both early and 
late, of Goethe, there occur many carelessnesses, yet in his 
noblest poems the language is as beautiful as German can 
be, and possesses, indeed, an artless elegance and grace to 
which Klopstock never could attain. 

The language was not only enriched by the genius of 
these writers and poets who followed out with greater free- 
dom of step the path opened by their predecessors, but in- 
dividual works were produced more perfect in their kind 
than Germany had even yet possessed. Poetry at that time 
took a totally new direction. Somewhat earlier it had been 
separated into two parties, the imitators of Wieland, and 

31* 



866 GERMAN CRITICISM. 

those of Klopstock. The first set thought of nothing bul 
muses, graces, love, roses, zephyrs, n^^mphs, and hamadryds ; 
the second re-echoed the old minstrelsy of the bards, the 
ice-dance, or the bear-hunt among rocks and wildernfsses; 
they wandered among the clouds with Eloah, and trod hea- 
venly pai?hs strewed with suns and stars; or if they stooped 
CO earth, it was in thunder, storm, and whirlwind, like the 
trumpet of the judgment. Between these two extremes of 
monotonous and uninteresting elevation, and luscious, half- 
Greek, half-modern effeminacy, the new poets endeavoured 
to establish something possessed of greater power, and more 
akin to nature. They made Homer, as the great poet of 
living nature, the chief subject of these eulogies, and trans- 
lated him with much success into the German language. 
Or they revived the faded recollections of ancient German 
history, art, and poetry, although they were in some instan- 
ces, little qualified, in point of erudition, to do what they had 
undertaken. Their attempts w-ere in general mere echoes ; 
but some were both admirable in themselves, and have been 
productive of important results. The single work, " Gotz 
of Berlichingen with the iron hand," was the parent of a 
numerous progeny of steel-clad knights and brotherhoods, 
who preserve alive, even down to our own time, the memory 
of old German freedom and heroism, at least upon the stage. 
The poem itself is a juvenile one, and has many errors and 
imperfections, and the history and manners represented in it 
are very far from being the true ones ; but it must always 
retain its value as a poetical picture of great energy, and be 
honoured as the best of all the youthful poems of its author. 
Upon the whole, perhaps, this new turn of things carried 
poetry somewhat too far from that lofty idea which Klop- 
stock conceived of it; it was separated too much into indi- 
vidual points, and brought too soon, and too exclusively, to 
the service af the stage. It seems to me, at least, quite cer 
tain, that a national theatre is never the better of being an 
early one. The Greek theatre itself ow^es much of its ex- 
cellence to the period -of its development. A theatre cannot 
possibly assume an air of exquisite perfection, unless it has 
been preceded by a literature and poetry cultivated with high 
success. Above all, the more lofty and serious species of 
poetry are its best harbingerS; because these imply a national 



LESSING AS A CRITIC. 367 

intellect and f=pii it in a state of deveiopmem most fitted to 
receive it. The criticism of Lessing had the effect of draw 
nig- our attention too much to the stage. With all his acute- 
ness and erudition, of which none can be a greater admirer 
than myself, it may, I think, be doubted whether Lessing 
produced a favourable effect on the German theatre. The 
translations of Corneille and Voltaire soon gave place to 
that species of moral domestic pictures introduced into France 
by Diderot, and prose was even supposed, for a considerable 
time, to be necessary for a truly natural dialogue. This 
pernicious error, however, at last passed away. The en- 
thusiasm for Shakespeare, to which Lessing greatly contrib- 
uted, was more permanent ; and from him we derived no- 
tions, both of nature and of poetry, far more profound and 
exquisite than were ever entertained by any of th.: school of 
Diderot. 

As a critical writer, Lessing was better adapt d for dis- 
covering and destroying particular errors in ta.te than for 
assigning to any one work, author, or species of writing, a 
true and just place in the scale of literary merit. He had 
not leisure nor patience to study the perfections of any one 
great work, as Winkelmann did ; and without such mature 
consideration and quiet enthusiasm, no man can become an 
imiversal critic. We must learn to comprehend the essence 
of art from admiration of excellence, rather than from de- 
tection of error. Lessing is too much a philosopher, and 
too little an artist in his criticism. He wants that energy of 
fancy by which Herder was enabled to transport himself in- 
to the spirit and poetry of every age and people. It is this 
very perception and feeling of the poetical, in the character 
of natural legends, which forms the most distinguishing fea- 
ture in the genius of Herder. The poetry of the Hebrews 
was that which most delighted him. He may be ca'^ed the 
mythologist of German literature, on account of this gift, 
this universal feeling of the spirit of antiquity. His power 
of entering into all the shapes and manifestations of fancy, 
implies in himself a very high degree of imagination. His 
mind seems to have been cast in so universal a mould, ^hat 
he might have attained to equal eminence, either as a poet, 
or as a philosopher. 

Since Winkelman wrote, the taste and feeling for art has 



368 PHILOSOPHY OF THE ELDER SCHOOL. 

been perpetually on the increase among- the Germans. This 
has been promoted, not only by the natural love which we 
have for poetry, but by the removal of almost all German 
talents from the affairs of external life. The German intel- 
lect has been left only two fields in which to exert itself, — 
taste and philosophy. The first of these was at first culti- 
vated to a degree which injured the second ; for many Ger- 
man writers, who spent their lives in discoursing- of subjects 
of mere art and taste, were evidently formed by nature for 
the higher species of philosophy. Such a natural predilec- 
tion is apparent enough, even in Winkelmann ; the whole 
of his high ideas of art are established upon the ground of a 
Platonic inspiration, which he had cultivated in the best 
manner, and which was the ruling principle of all his 
thoughts. Of all kinds of philosophy, there is none which 
Harmonizes so well with a love of art as this; but in him 
the Platonism was so strong, that it lifted him not unfre- 
quentiy very far above the subjects of which he treated. In 
particular, his later writings are full of manifestations of 
'his philosophical propensity, and I know not but it might 
have been very fortunate for German philosophy, had it set 
out in the hands of such a Platonist as Winkelmann. 

Lessing, so soon as his spirit had reached the height of 
its manly maturity, laid aside, as follies of his youth, the 
whole of his antiquarian, dramatic, and critical pursuits. 
The philosophical inquiry after truth was the object of all 
his later exertions, and he devoted himself to this noble pur- 
suit with an earnestness of enthusiasm to which even his 
ardent mind had as yet been a stranger. In his earlier pur- 
suits, he seems to have written rather by way of exercising 
his genius, and from the wish of overthrowing his adversa- 
ries, than from any profound love of his own cause. How- 
ever much nature had fitted him to be a critic, his highest 
destination was for philosophy. He was too far above his 
age to be understood by it ; and, moreover, he did not live 
to fill up the outline of the system which he embraced. 

Of the philosophers of the elder school, Sultzer devotea 
his thoughts and researches to art, with the views and habit? 
of his time; Mendelsohn's ambition was to establish the uni- 
versal truths of religion upon philosophical principles; 
Garve was no adherent of the school of Leibnitz, but hi*? 



THE ENQUIRIES OF LAVATER 369 

whole character shews that he should be classed witJi the 
elder period. He devoted himself principally to the moral 
philosophy of the ancients and the English. He seems to 
have partaken in the errors of his masters, and to have view- 
ed ethics as founded rather on the principles of elegance and 
the agreeable, than on those true and more profound prin 
ciples with which German feeling have greater sympathy. 
The philosophical romances of Wieland had a still more 
dangerous tendency to promote a merely Epicurean system 
of morality. These men were not well fitted to be the 
guides of a nation and age placed on the brink of such con- 
flicts and difficulties as were then about to agitate the world. 

Kant was not as yet known. Lavater pursued a path of 
his own quite remote from all the rest. The world has be- 
come well acquainted with the follies of his physiognomical 
reveries, and have considered him as a mere dreamer. The 
profoundness of his philosophical views, and the best of his 
works, are equally unknown. Of all the inquirers of the 
last century I know of none, who, next to Lessing, laboured 
more to pursue the traces of forgotten truth than Lavater. 

The writings of Reimarus concerning natural religion 
contain nothing but what is quite commonplace. Lessing 
laid hold of the same subject with very different views, and 
with superior genius. The then prevalent doubts, produced 
by the philosophy of Locke and Descartes, had no interest 
for him. In all his controversial writings, (and in none 
more than his Education of the Hnman Race, and his Free 
mason Dialogues,) we may discover things more intimately 
connected with the principal subjects of the higher philoso- 
phy, than any contemporary inquirer seems ever to have 
contemplated. Leibnitz was the only philosopher, near his 
own time, of whom he thought much, and him he consider- 
ed as standing at a very great distance from those who at 
that time conceived themselves to be of the Leibnitzian 
school. He understood him better than any of them, be- 
cause he studied Spinosa whom they neglected. The meta- 
physics of Lessing are, indeed, imperfect, and, in some re- 
spects, he seems not only to have overcome, but even not 
to have understood that greatest of all his adversaries ; but 
I must confess that I think he saw farther than Kant, al- 
though not with so systematic an eye, into the deep places 



370 THE ENTHUglASM OF LESSING. 

of philosophy. Had he lived longer and husbanded hit* 
strength, his influence and fame might have become verj- 
superior to what they are. The freedom and boldness of 
his spirit might have given a better direction to German 
philosophy than he received from Kant and his adherents. 
He is sometimes said to have been a Spinosist ; but of this 
reproach he is by no means deserving. One of his most fa- 
vourite notions was that of the metempsychosis — a doctrine 
obviously quite irreconcileable with the genius of a philoso- 
phy that denied the personal duration of the soul. Lessing's 
leaning was rather to the old oriental philosophy, and of 
this he himself makes no secret. I perfectly agree with 
those who maintain that enthusiasm cannot be guarded 
against with too much care and anxiety; for it is clear, that 
all the masterly learning of Leibnitz, and all the sound 
judgment of Lessing, could not preserve these great men 
from mistakes which are very easily discovered and ridiculed 
by their inferiors. 

The enthusiasm and dreams of Lessing did not pass into 
^he spirit of the age, along with the example of his boldness, 
and the inheritance of his doubts. He has become an in- 
strument in the hands of his most inveterate enemies. In a 
certain sense he may be said to have completed the work 
which was begun by Luther. It was he w^ho established 
Protestantism in the most enlightened part of Germany, or 
at least who annihilated there the cause of Catholicism. It 
is lamentable indeed to see with what perversity of inge- 
nious mischief the principles of this deep and philosophical 
believer, were converted into the weapons of illumination 
and infidelity by Basedow, Nicolai, and Weisshaupt. Un- 
belief and contempt of religion did not, indeed, make the 
same bold and rapid strides as in France, or as among cer 
tain individuals of England, but the undecided and phantastic 
shape they had assumed have rendered them more dangerou.« 
to such a people as the Germans ; and it may be that wt'- 
have not as yet seen the worst of their consequences. 

Even the repose of universal peace, and the flourishmg 
condition of Germany, must have been favourable to the rise 
of a new mode of thinking, quite as much as to the dcA^elop- 
ment of the arts and sciences. Ak.hough these did not in 
deed receive any very open patronag-e, yet the internal '•a',"? 



THIRD EPOCH OF GERMAN WRITERS. 371 

Faction of a powerful and thriving nation must have had ? 
very considerable effect even in this respect. Germany in 
the middle of last century, and in the period immediately 
subsequent, possessed the two most imposing rulers in Eu- 
rope. Frederick and Maria Theresa were in diff'erent ways 
the pride of their people, and expectations even of a still 
higher nature were excited by the youth of the Emperor 
Joseph II. His active reign satisfied the hopes of his sub 
jects ; but so far as science and art were concerned the prO' 
phecies of the patriotic Klopstock were not fulfilled. As 
the sovereign of so many countries out of Germany, this 
emperor might rather have been expected to found a great 
scientific institute for the whole of Europe, than for Germa- 
ny by itself; and in another work I have expressed my con- 
viction of the important nature of those services which by so 
doing he might have rendered to the spirit and mind of the 
age in which he appeared. He regarded too exclusively 
the practical side of the sciences. He was so far, however, 
from having any contempt of them, that he entered with 
even too much keenness into many of those theories of laAV, 
finance, and police, which were started during his time. It 
is fit and natural that a great monarch should be a practical 
man, even in regard to science, but they who are the best 
politicians are aware that physical power and external splen- 
dour are not the only component parts of the greatness of a 
nation. 

I now proceed to the third generation in German litera- 
ture — a period remarkably different from either of the fore- 
going. By fixing our eyes distinctly and closely upon the 
general character of these different epochs and generations, 
we shall adopt the surest means of solving many otherwise 
dangerous contradictions, of reconciling many apparently 
opposite opinions, taken up either from total misunderstand- 
ing, or from looking at things in a partial, not a general 
point of view. The whole external circumstances and 
ruling spirit of that epxDch in which the first education and 
development of a writer occur, determine very frequently 
the character of his genius, and in all cases exert a very 
decisive influence over his choice of the subjects to which he 
applies it. 

I gc lunt those to belong to the third generation whc 



372 INFLUENCE OF THE REVOLUTION. 

mostly formed their taste and habits of thinking during the 
last fifteen years of the eighteenth century. The external 
events and prevalent spirit of the time had a mighty mflu- 
ence upon the German literature ; not only on the writers, 
but on the public. The public for which the German 
writers and poets laboured, consisted at the period before 
this, of a few particular friends and patrons of the arts,- a 
few scattered dilettanti. Such was the public of Klop€tock 
and his contemporaries, and it was long before^ the small 
band became increased. The revolution promoted reading 
and writing, and soon extended its influence over literature 
and philosophy quite as widely as over politics. However 
injurious in many instances its influence may have been, 
there is no question that it roused to an unexampled degree 
the public interest for all things, and that even the violence 
of party rage, like most other species of conflict, was advan- 
tageous to the development of human intellect. If I should 
characterize this epoch by a single word, I would call it 
the revolutionary one — protesting, however, against mis- 
takes, and using the terni in a sense not a little difl^erent 
from the common one. It is true, indeed, that to the honom 
of the German writers, the most distinguished of them, at 
least, remained entirely free and pure from the democratic 
frenzy of the first years of the revolution. There is* only 
one exception, and he, we must all allow, was not one of 
the deceivers, but one of the deceived. It was difficult at 
that period to resist the treacherous hopes which were every 
where held forth for acceptance, but such of our better 
writers as had been so deceived, soon returned to their right 
judgment, and did all they could to atone for tTieir errors. 
I make use of the term rather in the same sense with that 
in the admirable saying, " Burke wrote a revolutionary 
book against the revolution." The meaning of this is, that 
Burke painted with such a terrible eloquence the convul- 
sions of the age, and so perfectly felt and understood the 
danger and the greatness of the existing struggle, that he 
himself was thrown into a state of agitation and contagious 
violence when he composed his book. It is this state of 
an internal rather than of an external struggle, that I con- 
sider as the distinguishing mark and characteristic; of the 
third generation. In order to make my meaning perleclly 



A 



SCEPTICISM OF SCHILLER. 373 

understood, I need only name one great poet and writer of 
inis period, whose splendid career has already been brought 
to Its close. Schiller in the first enthusiastic writings of his 
youth, exhibits all the most striking symptoms of internal 
conflict, and breathes the full confidence of all those vision- 
ary hopes and violent opposition to existing institutions, 
Avhich were the immediate harbingers of the revolution. 
In some of his early works he expresses a passionate and 
painful scepticism — an unbelief, w^hich is accompanied in 
his young spirit, with so much sublime earnestness and fire 
of energy, that we contemplate it not with aversion, but with 
compassion, and with the hope that a soul so fearfully agi- 
tated and so panting for the truth, would, in its period of 
manhood and maturity, attain the repose of faith. What a 
mighty change do we observe in the subsequent progress of 
his career ! what a dio-nified strugo-le with himself, the 
world, the philosophy of the age, and his own art ! Rest- 
less in himself, and perpetually tossed about in unquietness, 
he comprehends and compassionates the universal convul- 
sions of the time. It is this which I mean to express by the 
word I have adopted, for, in a greater or in a less degree, 
the remark I have made concerning Schiller applies to all 
the illustrious writers of his epoch. 

The poets and other authors of the second generation 
lived in a state of carelessness, which appears to us very 
remarkable, accustomed as we are to trace in the events 
which occurred during their time, the seeds of all the sub- 
sequent agitations. In political events they took no sort of 
concern, and lived in a total contempt of the whole external 
world, existing only for themselves and the enjoyment of 
their own art. John Muller alone forms an exception ; his 
spirit was entirely devoted to historical events, and looking 
down from the solitary elevation of his Alps, he saw farther 
into the gathering tempests of the political world than any 
of his brethren, inhabitants of the peaceful valley, or the 
tumultuous capital. Instead of this artist-like and happy 
unconcern, the whole of the writers of the late generation, 
who appeared between the year 1780 and the year 1800, 
appear to be thoroughly penetrated with the spirit and feel- 
nigs of their age-; they either coincide in, or oppose, with 
the violence of partisans, the prevalent system of opinions. 

32 



374 rant's philosophy. 

One of our writers, the most fertile of his age, creates tae 
greater part of his interest by taking possession of the mer- 
ciful and tolerant side of the time: and another much greater 
genius, going to the totally opposite extreme, thinks that in 
his favourite i he has discovered the Tlou 2'tuj of Archimedes. 
A third writer, who is the favourite of his age and nation, is 
so, because he has seized upon the whole wealth of this 
variously developed epoch, and represented all its disso- 
nances and complaints with Avit, sympathy, and a peculiar 
species of humour, in a style the remarkable nature of which 
is of itself a sufficient proof that the period in which it was 
formed was a revolutionary one. Other authors, disgusted 
with the chaotic situation of actual aflaiis. betook themselves 
to the regions of mere fancy, or of pure science. A few mude 
a wiser use of their experience, and returned with a sense of 
humility, and submission to the aids of religion, and the long 
neglected sublimities of the Bible. 

I cannot pretend to bring my history an^^ farther down, 
for I am sensible how impossible it must be for a man to 
depict a period to which he himself belongs. When an 
external struggle becomes universal in any department of 
human activity, the social as well as the intellectual, it is 
impossible that either party should be entirely in the right. 
Even they who have espoused the right cause will mingle 
something wrong in the feelings of their triumph. The 
creative influence of a period of convulsion may be suffi- 
ciently proved by a reference to the history of Schiller — 
what mighty spaces intervene between the Robbers, the 
Don Carlos, and the "VVallenstein ! Invention is certamly 
more favoured by such a period than perfect finishing; but 
many German works produced during these years exhibit 
both in a beauty which they can manifest only when they 
are united. 

During this period the philosophy of Kant was at the 
height of its power in Gerniany. That its effects were in- 
jurious in respect to rehgion, I cannot upon the whole be- 
lieve, for that had already been attacked in its more funda- 
mental principles by adversaries much more fitted to pro- 
duce a popular effect. If in some respects it fostered 
doubts, these doubts were of the more profound and serious 
Qature, and carried their own antidote along with them. I 



DEFECTS OF KANT. 375 

do not mean to saj^ any thing in favour of the mere faith of 
reason, but I maintain, that if the truth had been entirely 
lost, there are to be found in the writings of Kant many 
hints by means of which a serious inquirer might have 
been greatly assisted in its recovery. If we reflect how 
generally a degrading infidelity had been received among 
the Germans, we shall easily admit that a more dignified 
system of infidelity must have been advantageous rather 
than pernicious. It is no doubt to be regretted, that the phi- 
losophy of Kant so soon became a sect. But even this was, 
like his corruption of our language, only a transitory evil. 
Kant's own style has the stamp of his character ; it is per- 
fectly original, and displays much philosophical acumen, 
spirit, and wit. But, upon the whole, and particularly in 
his method of constructing periods, we can see evident marks 
of a soul toiling painfully after truth, and undergoing per- 
petual concussions from its doubts. Hence arose the un- 
fortunate Terminology. But that barbarism, the cipher lan- 
guage of philosophy, has now in a great measure disap- 
peared ; only a few of our better writers still make some 
use of it. and that from slovenliness. The best philoso- 
phical writings of later years are quite pure in respect oi 
language. 

In Kant's philosophy are to be found many of the defects 
of his predecessors in the seventeenth and eighteenth centu- 
ries. He sets out with ideas of time and space quite as dead 
as those of Leibnitz ; like almost all other philosophers since 
Descartes he wavers between the principle of personal con- 
sciousness and the external world of the senses, and he at 
last lands in the system of experience, like Locke. As this, 
however, is quite silent respecting all moral and divine things, 
he formed, in a manner not very consistent either with the 
spirit of the English philosopher, or with his own princi- 
ples, a system of rational faith out of the scattered fragments 
of rational knowledge. This found no believers or follow- 
ers The Kantian doctrines of morality and law are indeed 
valuable, because they shew exactly how far reason does 
enter into the formation of true morality and true law: hue 
they furnish an example even more striking than that of the 
Stoics, how inadequate nay, in some instances, how perni 



"76 PRESENT PHILOSOPHY OF GERMANY. 

cious, any system of ethics must be which rests \ipon nc 
higher foundation than reason can afford. 

The chief merit of Kant in regard to this subject is, that 
he demonstrated the incapacity of pure reason to decide any 
thing at all respecting such subjects — that she can acquire 
some knowledge of God and divine things only by her power 
of gathering facts out of the experience of human life. In- 
stead, however, of placing reason where he should, in the 
second place, he erroneously assigned her the first, and the 
ill used name of faith, which he bestowed on her, was a very 
insufficient mask. Had he avoided this ancient error, and 
laid open the path to true knowledge, with that accuracy of 
which his genius was capable, he might have attained the 
great object of his ambition, and become to philosophy what 
Bacon has been to physics. He might have put an end for 
ever to verbal difficulties, and established religion upon the 
foundation of experience and science. 

To explain at greater length the two main errors which 
have sprung from the philosophy of Kant, and to give you 
a general picture of the present philosophy of Germany, 
would carry me very far beyond the limits which I have for 
the present prescribed to myself Living poets who have 
already composed a series of great works, and finished their 
career before our eyes, may be taken into the historical pic- 
ture of the latest period. Not so philosophers; their ideas 
may yet assume a different form of development, their system 
IS as yet in futuro. I shall only make this one general re- 
mark, that our country has been distinguished since Kant by 
a spirit of profound and patient investigation ; and that our 
philosophers have formed their own speculations with the 
advantages of a more extensive learning than has as yet been 
equalled in any other country of modern Europe. These 
are the best preparations and symptoms of a return from error 
to (ruth. Some have already made great progress in the 
removal of the errors which were bequeathed by Kant. I 
may be pardoned for mentioning the name of my own de- 
parted friend Novalis ;* not that he was the first who re- 
turned to (he right path, or that he has carried his views 
farther than many others, but because the fragments which 

• Heinrich von Hardenberg. 



MODERN GERMAN POETS. 377 

he has bequealhed to us are a sufficient proof that, had he 
lived, he ^YOuld have done more for true philosophy than 
any of those whom he has left behind him. With a digni- 
fied simplicity and clearness Slottberg expresses the loftiness 
of that faith, which not only gave repose to his feehngs. but 
energy to his genius. Many approximations have been 
made, and are now making, to the truth. I hope that ere 
[ong the return will be universal, and the philosophy of 
Germany assume a shape in which she will be no longer the 
enemy and darkener, but the champion and torch-bearer, of 
the truth. At all times we should separate persons from 
ophiions : but above all we should beware of hating or dis- 
trusting philosophy in general, merely on account of the in- 
dividual errors into which her adherents may have been be- 
trayed. False philosophy can only be supplanted by the 
true. This consideration should quicken the energy and sus- 
tain the confidence of the age. 

I now turn to the poets — but I must confine m3'self to a 
very few remarks even concerning them. During this pe- 
riod the more mature works of Goethe first became known 
and admired, as they deserved to be, and many of them be- 
long to it even by the date of their compositions. The best 
of them are now very generally admitted to be, both in re- 
spect to poetical art and beauty of language, the most excel- 
lent of which the German language can boast. This poet 
possesses, in an unequalled decree, that power and ease by 
which the writers of the second generation are distinguished 
In some particular pieces his example might indeed be a 
misleading one ; for even in his rnaturer years he has too 
often brought do^vn his poetry to the present ; and there is 
indeed perhaps no other poet who has bestowed so much art 
upon subjects entirely modern. But nothing can enable us 
to judge better of the difficulty of this whole undertaking 
than the simple comparison of his writings of modern repre- 
sentation with those poems of which the subjects are taken 
from periods more remote. How inferior is Eugenie to 
Egmont. considering both as poetical representations of the 
mode in which civil disorder and revolution are fostered and 
extended in the vulgar and in the cabinet. Or if we may 
be allowed to class together works externally of different 
species on account of the kindred nature of their internal 

32* 



378 OF goethe's dramas. 

import, how superior is the Tasso to the Affinities of Cfiotee 
as a picture of the development of passion in the higher orders 
of society. If we look upon the last named work merely 
as a representation of the mind struggling with the world, 
(like the Faustus.) and compare it in that point of view with 
the William Meister, how greatly must it appear its infe- 
rior, both in respect to thought and style. If we look to the 
poetry alone, I imagine that these works, Faustus, Iphigenia, 
Egmont, and Tasso, will maintain in future ages the fame 
of this author, along with the most beautiful of his songs. 
In that mode of composition he has, in every period of his 
life, been alike admirable. 

Many doubt whether Goethe was meant by nature for a 
dramatic poet, and think that even in such of his pieces as 
are best adapted for the stage, as for instance in Egmont, the 
repose of his descriptive representations points out a poet 
whose tendency is rather to the epic. His attempts, how- 
ever, in the epic, or in those species most nearly allied to it, 
have never been eminently successful. It seems as if he had 
never been able to light upon either a subject or form of epic 
composition exactly to his mind. His feelings led him more 
to the romantic than the proper heroic ; and the romantic, in 
the widest sense of the word, when it affords play alike for 
fancy, w^it, feeling, and observation, seems to be indeed the 
proper sphere of this great poet. 

The influence which he exerted over his age w^as two- 
fold, and such also appears to be his nature. In respect of 
his art, many have called him with justice the Shakespeare 
of our age — an age, namely, which leans more to riches of 
ideas and variety of cultivation, than to high perfection of 
art in any one department of poetry. In respect to his mode 
of thinking, as he has applied it to the concerns of actual 
life, our poet deserves his other appellation of the German 
Voltaire. A German he is in every thing ; and even his 
mockeries, ironies, and unbelief, are expressed with a tone 
of goodheartedness, seriousness, and eloquence, to which the 
French Voltaire was an utter stranger. The want of settled 
prmciple is indeed the defect which most frequently strikes 
US in the midst of all the polished elegance, exquisite irony, 
and profuse wit which this great poet has lavished over all 
the creations o" his' genius. 



SCHILLER^S DOUBTS. 379 

The unhappy relation of the German poetry to tlie Ger- 
man stage, is apparent from this circumstance, that both 
Klopstock anil Goethe have written many dramas Avhich 
they never meant for representation ; although some of the 
pieces of Goethe, so composed, have, at a subsequent period, 
been brought upon the stage. The same circumstance oc- 
curred with respect to the Don Carlos of Schiller ; and after 
he had resisted all the seductive influence of his first success, 
he has not been able to produce so much effect by the more 
dignified exertions of his art. But even although there re- 
mains some Avant of harmony between his poetry and our 
stage, still he was the true founder of our drama. He gave 
it its proper sphere, and its most happy form. lie \\-as 
thoroughly a dramatic poet: even the passionate rhetoric 
which he possessed along with his poetry, belonged exactly 
to this character. His historical and philosophical works 
and attempts are only to be considered as the studies and 
preparations of a dramatic artist. Yet his philosophical 
tracts are very valuable, from the light which they afibrd us 
into his internal spirit, and the proof they give of his want 
of mental harmony. A doubting, sceptical, unsatisfied dis- 
position seems to accompany his spirit in all its inquiries. 
He himself appears to have remained alwaj^s at the very 
threshold of doubt, and even in the noblest and most animated 
of his works we are chilled by the breath of an internal 
coldness. 

Some have been of the opinion, that Schiller's philosophi- 
cal pursuits were injurious to him, even in respect to his 
own art. But, in truth, his infidelity had its origin at an 
earlier period, and the satisfying of a spirit such as his was 
a matter of greater moment than any thing which regards 
the mere finishing of an art. And even with a view to the 
drama, I think that the historical and philosophical turn 
which Schiller has given to some of his tragedies, is by no 
means deserving of censure. Our theatre is not to flourish 
by means of voluminous authors: but like those of Greece, 
England, and Spain, by means of profound thought and his- 
torical import. At one period of his life Schiller seeins in- 
deed to have entertained some false notions respecting the 
essence of the ancient tragedy, but this we must considej 
merely as a proof that he had not at that time brought the 



380 PROSPECTIVE VIEW. 

Studies which he pursued so earnestly, to their proper ter- 
mination. 

The same lofty ideas of tragedy which Schiller enter- 
tained were also held by Henry Collin. So intensely was 
his spirit imbued w^ith the inspiration of patriotism, that 
even when he treats of subjects of antiquity, he is always a 
national poet. 

I feel that I have now reached the termination of the pic- 
ture w^hich I undertook to unfold. The multitude of cir- 
cumstances which pressed upon me, and the interest which 
I took in the representation of the middle age, have abridged 
me in the latter part of my labours. I have done little more 
in these last lectures but point out the names of men upon 
whose works I should have dilated with much more fulness, 
both for your sakes and for my own. In regard to German 
literature, if I had not confined m^yself to very narrow limits, 
each several province or department might easily have oc- 
cupied a space as considerable as that which I have devoted 
to the w^hole. 

I see plainly that a new generation are arising and fashion- 
ing themselves, and that the nineteenth century will be no 
less distinguished in the history of German letters than the 
eighteenth has been. But the spirit and tendency of this 
young generation are not yet so much developed that I can 
venture to give any certain opinion as to its character. Much 
will be expected from them, for great things have been done 
to prepare the way for them. If we are to speak of the 
w^hole body of the German literature, I do not hesitate for a 
moment to say, that I expect all our most sanguine expecta- 
tions will, at no very distant period, be fulfilled. At present 
I see much both of false taste and affectation in our art and 
poetry. The imitation of the antique, and of the great men of 
the preceding age, is conducted on narrow principles. Even 
in philosophy we have not borrowed the best part of those who 
have gone before us. But I hope that ere all long these things 
will exist only in remembrance. If the times proceed as they 
have lately done, literature will soon become much less the 
concern of individuals than of the public, and the influence of 
readers upon authors will at least be as that of authors upon 
readers. Since the middle of last century, literary works 
and literary men have assumed a totally new character in 



DECLINE OF SECTARIANISM. 881 

Germany, more so tiian m any other country of Europe. 
The greater the number of spectators is, the more is the in- 
terest m the spectacle ; and I kno\v not that any literature 
can be inspired more favourably than by the constant contem- 
plation of such a spirit and nation as our own. 

Even the spirit of sectarianism, however deeply it has 
been implanted among us, has of late years been visibly on 
the decline. Of those sects which in the last half of the 
eighteenth century had most influence in Germany, and on 
that account, if on no other, are historically of some im.por- 
tance, the illuminati sunk into the background, at the first 
appearance of the more profound philosophy ; the Kantians 
have now begun to be as weary of their own system as the 
world was before them, and even the natural philosophers 
have become split into so many parties that they can scarcely 
be said to form any longer a particular sect. I am far from 
flattering myself that the errors of any one of these systems 
no longer exist, but they do not shew themselves in the same 
imposing form as before. The spirit of sect has become 
milder; scholastic forms have sunk into comparative con- 
tempt, and all parties prepare to labour in unison on the 
great work of developing the intellect of Germany. 

It is scarcely necessary for me to recall to your recollec- 
tion that our literature, even from the first epoch of its de- 
velopment, has been in a state of perpetual contest and strug- 
gle. At first the conflict lay between the Swiss, who ad- 
mired exclusively the poetry and criticism of England and 
antiquity, and the Saxons, who were the professed worship- 
pers of the literature and taste of France; then between the 
serious and playful poets, the followers of Klopstock and 
those of Wieland : and in another department, between the 
jrthodox party, and the new sect of illuminati. The contest 
assumed a more serious appearance in the time of the Kan- 
tian philosophy, as a regular struggle between idealism and 
empiricism. Both of these last combatants have in a cer- 
tain sense gained the victory. Empiricism has with justice 
become the ruling system in all that regards practical life, 
physics, and pure science. Idealism, taking it in the high- 
est acceptation of the word, as the system of those who re- 
cognize ideas as superior to sensation, has exerted a power- 
ful and an abiding influence upon our art, our criticism, and 



332 STRUGGLES OF THE INTELLECT. 

our. higher philosoph}^ We often hear men speak of the 
new school and the golden age. I have ah'eady said that 
our literature has no proper golden age, and I acknowledge 
I can as yet observe nothing that is deserving to be called a 
new school We should be ambitious to perfect what has 
been begun, not to shew our invention at the expense of our 
judgment. Another foolish enmity which has become for- 
gotten, is that which subsisted between the literary men of 
the North, and of the South of Germany. We were never 
so sensible of our national identity as now. 

If we consider the remarkable struggles of intellect which 
occurred during the last century, in a more general point of 
view — as they developed themselves, not in Germany alone 
out in England, in France, and in the whole of Europe, — 
and ask for a merely historical solution of this great pheno- 
menon, the following is probabh^ the conclusion at which 
we should arrive. This struggle has had its seat not in 
those persons and events alone wherein it has been mani- 
fested to us. but rather in a great internal awakening through- 
out the whole intellect of man. 

The wild wanderings of reason and power of thought set 
free from all control, and then the reviving of imagination, 
which had so long slept beneath the pressure of a formal 
and (apparently only) a scientific system, were probably the 
moving causes of all these manifold convulsions and con- 
flicts. In France despotic and contemptuous reason re- 
nounced all the bonds of faith and love, and displayed its 
destructive influence upon the external life and manners of 
a nation, in a way which has furnished us and our posterity 
with a warning and a terrible example. In Germany, from 
the different character of the nation, the spirit of the time 
manifested itself not in bloody revolutions, but in the entan- 
gled warfares of metaphysicians. The regeneration of fltncy 
has in more countries than one she\ATi itself in the revived 
love of old traditions and romantic poetry. To the extent 
and depth, however, wherein this love has been kindled 
among the Germans, no other nation of Europe can furnish 
a parallel. They have had their time, it is fit that we 
should now have ours. 

Were I called upon to select one example of the preva- 
lent power and freedom of reason, of the endless rapidity 



FICHTE AND TIECK. 38S 

with which strong spirits weaken, destroy, and recreate the 
structure of thought, I should fix upon none more readily 
than Fichte; not merely on account of power of invention 
and masterly management of thought, which are in so high 
a degree peculiar to him, but also because he takes the ma- 
terials of thoughts entirely from himself, trusts every thing 
to nature, and depends in nothing upon those who have gone 
before him. The corresponding energy in the exertions of 
imagination, the resurrection, as I might call it, of fancy in 
Germany, cannot be more strongly exemplified than in 
Tieck — a poet who is so perfectly master of all the depths, 
and observations, and wonders, and mj'Sterics of his art. 

So far have reason, and imagination, and the century ad- 
vanced; but tis 3''et no farther. We must not, however, for- 
get, that unless we retrograde, we must of necessity proceed. 
To this profoundness of reason which we have attained, and 
ihis fulness and majesty of fancy which ha\^e been restored 
to us, there must yet be added that stableness of will and pur- 
pose, which brings the seeds of good to maturity, and guards 
them from the first encroachments of corruption. The clear- 
ness of an enlightened judgment must watch over those 
mighty energies of reason and of fancy. True judgment 
depends in all things upon universality of observation, and 
discernment of that which is right, in the midst of much 
more that is wrong. 

I have endeavoured in these lectures, to lead you to a 
point of view from which all our literature and all the ope- 
rations of our intellect should be surveyed ; as in all my 
more early attempts, my object has been to discriminate be- 
tween the good and the evil, without any ambition to display 
those arts of rhetoric which might have pleased your ears 
but could not have aided your judgment. 



THE END. 



I N 1) E X 



A. 

Achilles and Patroclus, the graves 
of, 19. And Ulysses, Criticism 
upon, 20 

vEschyius, his dramatic genius, 23. 
His characteristics as a poet, 25. 

Age, of Socrates, its peculiar cha- 
racteristics, 28. Its influence 
on the Greek philosophy, 55. 
Of Charlemagne, 169. Its en- 
couragement of religion, 170. 
Of the Crusades, 175. Influ- 
ence and character of its love 
poetry, 176. Of the Trouba- 
dours, its effects upon literature, 
199. Of Voltaire, its influence 
on the French philosophy, 292. 
Alexandrian, the, state of the 
arts during, 37. Augustan, 
its high refinement, &c., 84, 90. 
Middle, its allegorizing spirit, 
205. 

Alphabet, Greek, its derivation 
from the Phoenicians, 14. 

Anaxagoras, the first who recog- 
nized the existence of a supreme 
intelligence, 46. 

Ancient manuscripts, loss of, 164. 

Anglo-Saxon language, the, 172. 

Ancient literature, the misuse of, 
217. 

Arab literature, its connexion with 
ancient Persia, 188. 

Arabian Tales, the, their peculi- 
arities, 187. 

Arabs, the, elder poetry of, 186. 

A-ichimedes, his ingenuity, &c., 64. 

A-ristophanes, character of his po- 
etic and historical writings, 32. 
Characteristics of bis times, ibid. 
His eminence in poetry, 36. 



Aristotle's system of ethics, 102. 
His disciples, ibid. Defests of 
his theory, 103. Influence of 
his philosophy on posterity, ibid. 

Arthur and his Round Table, 
184. 

Arts, their high cultivation among 
the Greeks, 37. 



B. 



Bible, the peculiarities of its style, 
&c., 207. Its influence on lite- 
rature and manners, 206. 

Bhogovotgita, the, translated by 
Wilkins, 128. 

Boccaccio, of, Decameron its pe- 
culiarities of style, 6tc., 204. 

Bohme, Jacob, the philosophic 
works of, 352. 

Bossuet, his genius and style, 308. 
As compared with Racine and 
others, 309. 

Brahmins, their doctrines and fa- 
bulous chronology, 102. Their 
religious creed, &c., 132. 

Buff"on, his great genius, 3l8. Com- 
pared with Rosseau, 327. 

Burke, influence of his philosophy, 
341. 



Csesar, the writings of, 83. 

Calderon, the last and greatest 
Spanish poet, 277. His distin- 
guishing attributes, 278. 

Camoens, his genius and works, 
262. As compared with Tassa 
265. 



386 



INDEX. 



Cathedral of Milan, the architec- 
ture of, 197. 

C/ervantes' Don Gluixote, 268. His 
other works, 269. 

Chivalrous poetny of Italy, its age 
of perfection, 148, 182, 214. Fic- 
tions, their success in Germany, 
194.' 

Jhristianity and heathenism, the 
contests of, 98. Its relations to 
poetry, 208. 

Christian religion, its progress and 
persecution, 136. Under Julian, 

137. Its influence on the Ro- 
man literature and language, 

138. AVriters of the earlier ages, 
140. The Fathers of the church, 
145. Poets, the great, Milton 
and others, 209. And Persian 
systems of rehgion compared, 
189. 

Cicero's Orations, characteristics 
of, 80. Their influence on Ra- 
man literature, 81. 

Cid, the, its nationality and value, 
201. Its pecuUarities, 261. 

Comprehensive view of German 
literature, 193. 

Contests of the old and foreign 
hterature, &c., 2l9. 

ComeilV', Racine, and Voltaire, 
their respective stj^les, 297. 

Creed of the Brahmins, 132. 

Crusades, the, influence of, 185. 



D. 

Dante, his characteristics of a great 
poet, 204, 210. 

Decline of the tragic art among 
the Greeks, 56. Of Poetry, 62, 
329. Of the fine arts in the age 
of Theodoric, 146. Of the Ger- 
man language, 216, Of histoii- 
cal writincr, 333. 

Oescartes. his system, &c., 305. 
His vain attempt, &c., 306. His 
followers, 307. 

Despotism of reason. 319. 

Diderot's works, critical remarks 
en :'2l 



Doctrine of pure ethics, 319. 

Dogmas of Helvetius, 320, 

Don Gluixote, the, of Cervantes, 

remarks on, 268. 
Drama, the, of the Romans, 74, 
Dramatic poetry, its end and de 

Sxgn, 279. Ancient and. modem 

284. 



Earl}'- French literature, 200. Chris- 
tian writers, 140. 

Elevation of the female character 
among the Greeks, 33. 

Elements of dramatic composition 
282. 

Embalming, the practice of, by the 
Egyptians, 115. 

English language, the, its tenden- 
cies, &€., 290. Writers of ro- 
mance, 326. Smollett, Fielding, 
&c, ibid. Of elegant hterature, 
ibid. 

Epochs of Grecian history, 15. Of 
European science, 218. 

Epic poetiy. its origin and charac- 
teristics, 179. 

Epicurus, the doctrines of, then 
influence, &c., 82. 

Ethics, the, of Socrates, 101. Com 
pared with those of Aristotle and 
Plato, ibid. 

Euclid, the classical authority of 
his works, 64. 

Euripides, the sophistry of, \i8. 
His enmity to Aristophanes, ib. 

Europe during the 18th century, 

European literature, its rise and 
progress, 14. 



F. 



Faith, religious, of the Hebrews 
and Persians, 110. 

Female influence in ancient tunca. 
33. High estimate of 178. 

Fichte and Tieck's writings, re- 
marks on, 383. 



NDEX. 



387 



Flemming, the works of, 353. 

F'oreign languages, study of, 3. 
Its advantages to the vernacu- 
lar, ibid. 

Frederick II., the influence of, on 
the literature of Germany, 355. 

French language and literature, 
291. Compared with the Ro- 
man, 310. Its changes, 338. 
Poetry, revival of, 293. Its pe- 
culiarities, 296. As seen in Cor- 
neille, Racine, &c., 297. Dra- 
ma, its progress, 294. The 
rhetoric of, 298. Compared 
with the English, 330. Trage- 
dy, its imitation of the Greek, 
295. Plrilosophy, the new, its 
evils, &c., 315. Voltaire, Ros- 
seau, and Diderot, 325. • Style, 
its peculiar features, 323. Com- 
pared with that of English wri- 
ers, 324. Character, its resem- 
blance to its literature, ibid. 
Taste, reflections on, 328. 

Future crisis of England, 337. 



Garcilaso, character of his works, 
250. 

Genius of Lucretius, 77. 

German language, its superiority, 
159. Its origin and progress, 
172. Its genius and peculiari- 
ties, 229. Love poetry, its ori- 
gin, &c. 177. Writers of ro- 
mance, 195. General view of, 
362. Literature, changes in, 1. 
Second generation, 365. Third 
epoch, 371. Its future pros- 
pects, 380. DccKne of sectari- 
anism, 381. Union of the north- 
ern and southern states, 382. 
Eflects of this, ibid. Schools of 
philosophy, 342. Their present 
condition, 343. SpinosaandLieh- 
nitz, 344. The morality of Spi- 
nosa, 345. The philosophy of 
Leibnitz, 346. His ideas of time 
and space, 347. Language and 
poetry, 348. Criticism and min- 
st'-elsy, 366. 



Gessner, the genius of, 359. 

Ghibellinism, extent of its influ- 
in the time of Dante, 211. 

Gibbon's historical writings, 332. 

Goethe's dramas, characteristics of, 
378. Compared with Shakes- 
peare, ibid. 

Gothic architecture, its rise and 
progress, 147, 196. Its peculiar- 
ities 198. Literature, remnants 
of, 149. 

Goths, the, their poetry, &c., 1.50. 

Graves of Achilles and Patroclus, 
19. 

Grecian political history as con- 
trasted with that of the Per- 
sians, Phoenicians, (fcc, 16. Li- 
terature in its flourishing era, 
15. Its after progress, 29. Com- 
pared with tlvit of Rome, 69. 
Retrospect of, 65. Its later con- 
dition, 95, 141. Manners, the 
decline in, 34. 

Greek tragedy, its high perfection 
in the time of Sophocles, 27, 75. 
Mythology, the deformities of, 
42. A Uegories and symbols, 43. 
Their influence on character, 44. 
Philosophy, its tenets, &c., 45. 
Its Iter characteristics, 105. 
Authors, their peculiarities, 70, 
Compared with Roman, 139. 
Their poetry, 144. Women, 
their elevation of character, 33. 
Influence on Roman literature, 
63. 

Greeks, the sceptical opinions of, 
48. 

Grotius, Hugo, the works of com- 
pared with Lord Bacon, 302. 
Their influence, ibid. Charac- 
teristics of his writings, 303. 
number of his adherents, 301. 

Guarini's "Pastor Fido,' 266. Us 
characteristic beauties, 267. 



IL 



Hebrews, religious beliei ol, con- 
trasted with that of the Greeks, 
106. Its influence in Persia, lOi^. 



388 



INDEX. 



Herodotus, works of, compared 
with ^schylus, 26. As an his- 
torian, Uiid. 

HeracUtus, his theory of nature, 
45. 

Heroic ballads of the early Ro- 
mans, 71. Age, the, 191. 

Elesiod, the poetry of, compared 
with that of Orpheus, 39. 

[Jindoos, the books and poems of, 
119. Their comparative, resem- 
blance to the Christian, 130. 
Religious system of, 33. its in- 
feriority to the Christian, ibid. 
Compaied with other nations, 
134. 

Hindostan, the historical literature 
of, 126. 

History, its importance to a na- 
tion, 11. Its influence in after 
ages, ibid. National, philosophi- 
cally described, 10. 

Homer, extensive influence of his 
genius, 12. His pre-eminence 
as a poet and philosopher, 13. 
His poems, their preservation, 
18. Compared with the old 
songs of the Arabians and the 
poems of Ossian, ibid. The cha- 
racteristic excellence of his wri- 
tings, 21. Signification of his 
name, ibid. Doubt as to his re- 
puted blindness, ibid. 

Hostility to poetry among the 
Greeks, 33. 

Horace, remarks on the genius of 
his works, 87. 

Human mind, the changes which 
it has undergone, 1. Race, their 
first dispersion and settlement, 
107. 

Hume's History of England, re- 
marks on, 331. 

Hungarian poets, their peculiari- 
ties, 234. Legends, remarks on, 
235. 



Iliad and Odyssey compared with 

the poems of Ossian, 22. 
[mmolation of widows, 122, Causes 



which originated the system, 

Importance of language as a bond 
of union, 7. 

India, the historical works of, 126 
Monuments, remarks on, 127 
Recluses or Gymnosophists, 129. 
The religious creed of, 131 
Their representations of the 
Deity, 42. The heroic poems 
of, 113. M3i;hology of, its high 
antiquity, 112. Its supposed 
origin, 124. 

Influence of Roman dialects, 143. 
Of a dead language, 162. Of 
Greek literature, 68, compared 
with Roman, 69. 

Italian literature, general view of 
203. Schools of painting, 215. ' 

Italy, during the 16th century 
240. 

Introduction to Greek literature , 73 

Invention of printing. &c., 223. 
Of Gunpowder, 224. Of paper, 
225. 



Job, the history of, 111. 

Jones, Sir William, translations 

of, 125. Their influence, &c., 

340. 
Juvenal, Satires of, 88. 



K. 



Kant's philosophy, 362. Ijts pecu- 
liarities, 374. Its defects and 
injurious influences, 375. 

Klopstock, his genius, 356. The 
Messiad a commencement of a 
new literature in Germany, ibid. 
His ideas of a new school of 
poetry, 357. His poetic style. 
358. His dramas, 379. 



L. 

Language identical with thought, 
7. Importance as a bona n* 



INDEX. 



389 



linion. ibid. In some instances 
misdirected and abused, 8. Its 
influence and peculiarities, 9. 
Upon the judgment, 10. 

La Fontaine, his pecuUar charm, 
322. 

Latin language, disadvantages 
from its too great use in the 
middle ages, 163. Its adoption 
in Germany, 2l6. 

liater literature of the Greeks, 29. 

Laura, the, of Petrarch, 212. 

Lavater, the enquiries of, 369. 

Lessing, the works of, 361. Re- 
marks on him as a critic, 367. 
His enthusiasm, &c., 370. 

Literary characters, their recipro- 
cal animosities, &c., 6. Causes 
of these, ibid. 

Literature, of the 18th century, 
the changes incident to, 3. Its 
revival in Europe, 4. Female 
influence in, ibid. Its importance 
and influence, 6. Of Greece 
and Rome, their respective cha- 
racteristics, 12. Compared, 14. 
Remarks on the same at a later 
period, 29. Of the north and 
east of Europe, 226. 

Locke's writings, their success as 
compared with those of Bacon 
and Hobbes, 313. 

Lope de Vega, the dramatic works 
of, 275. His genius and style, 
276. _ 

Lucretius, the genius of, 77. 

Luther, Martin, the tenets of, 231. 
His translation of the Bible, 349. 
Influence of his writings, 350. 
And Melancthon, their peculi- 
arities of style, 251. 



M. 

Machiavellij the influence of his 
writings, 220. His erroneous 
opinions, 221. Their injurious 
effects, 222. 

Manuscripts, tlj e multiplication of, 
165. 



Marco Polo, the travels of, 181. 

Men of letters in Germany, their 
distinguishing characteristics, 2. 
Their tastes and habits different 
from those of the common peo- 
ple, 6. Destructive tendency of 
this to the national character, 
ibid. 

Mental refinement, how derived 
from the ancients, 12. 

Menander, the last Athenian poet, 
57. 

Metempsychosis, the doctrine of 
47. Its first introduction into 
Europe, 114. Its influence on 
the intellectual character of the 
Europeans, 117. Effects of its 
belief in India, 121. 

Middle ages, the, 160, 

Milan, the cathedral of, 197. 

Modern literature, the sources o^ 
142. European languages, 166. 
German philosophy contrasted 
with that of the middle ages, 
247. School of philosophy, 334. 
Peculiarities of its writers, 335, 
Modern German poets, 377. 

Monk, the situation of, favourable 
for literary pursuits, 171. 

Mosaic writings, their peculiarities, 

Muller, superiority of his genius. 

373. 
Mythology, Greek, the deformities 

of, 42. 



N. 

National character, requisites to 
the formation of, 4. Poetry, ita 
elevating tendency, 9. History, 
philosophically described, 10. 
Its great importance, 11. Lan- 
guage, its importance, &c., 236. 

Neibuhr's Roman history, 71. 

New Platonic school of philoso- 
phy, 97. Style o:^ ^or,-tic com- 
position in Italy, 213. 

NovaUs' views of German philoso- 
phy, 376. 



S90 



INDEX. 



O. 

Occult sciences, thcj in Germany, 
246. 

Odin, a historical personage, 151. 
The poetical legends of, 152. 
Extinction of in JSaxony, in the 
age of Charlemagne, 154. 

Opitz 3f Silesia, the works of, 352. 

Orations of Cicero, the, 80. Their 
influence on Roman literature, 
81. 

Orpheus, name possibly fabulous, 
39. His imputed work, ibid. 
contrasted with Homer, 40. 

Ovid's Metamorphoses, critical re- 
marks on, 60, 



P. 

Painters of Germany — Holbein, 
Albert Durer, &c. 238. Efiects 
of the reformation on, 239, 

Pascal, the writings of, 311. His 
sophistry, 312. 

Peculiarities of heroic poetry, 158. 

Period of German refinement, 167. 
Compared with other nations, 
168. 

Persian literature, its rise and pro- 
gress, 190. 

Petrarch, characteristics of his 

' style, 212. 

Philosophy, of the middle age, 244. 
Of the period previous to the 
reformation, 248. Of the Aris- 
totelic, 249. Of the 15th cen- 
tury, 250. The Platonic sup- 
pressed, 254. Of the 17th cen- 
tury, 299. Of the elder school 
of Germany, 368. Of Germany 
of the present time and its fu- 
ture prospect, 376. Of Bacon, 
its characteristics, 301. Its in- 
fluence, 302. 

?'indar, the writings of, 24. 

Plato, the philosophy of, remarks 
on, 78. His pre-eminence among 
.he Greeks, 54, 99. 

Plutarch and other historians, 96. 

Poetical wealth of the Greeks, 161. 



Poetic compositions, remarks on, 
78. 

Poetry of the Greeks, early his- 
tory of, 11. Hostihty to it, 38, 
The essential attributes ofj 58. 
Its decline in Greece, 62. The 
true subjects of, 79. Its present 
decline, 329. Of the West, 186. 
Of the Germans, 192. Of Catho- 
lic countries, 255. And romance 
of Spain, 268. Dramatic ot 
Spain, 273. 

Poets, their ordinary defects, 59 
Ancient and modern, 285. 

Political history of Greece, 15. 

Polish language, its pecuUarities, 
Zoo. 

PoHshed learning of the Greeks, 

Progress of the Saracens, 180. Of 
philosophy in England, France, 
&c., 241. Aristotle's system, 
242. Evils of the Scholastic 
system, 243. 

Purity of the Roman language, 



R. 

Refinement and learning of tho 
Greeks, 16. 

Reformation, the, its effects on art, 
science, and literature, 239. 

Relation of Christianity to poetry, 
208. 

Revival of Greek philosophy, 55. 

Robertson's historical writings, 
331. 

Roman literature contrasted with 
the Greek, Q&. Errors into 
which it has fallen, 67. Its de- 
cline, &c., 89. Its short dura- 
tion, 92. New epoch under 
Hadrian, 94. Writers, peculi- 
arities of, 67. Paucity of, after 
the time of Trajan, 94. Great- 
ness, the era of, 72. Gladiato- 
rial exhibitions, th-eir corrupting 
influence, 75. Drama, condi- 
tion of, 76. Prose writers su- 
perior to their poets, 88. Lan- 



INDEX. 



39 t 



guage, the age of its purity, 91. 
Its corruption and eiecline 145. 
Jurisprudence, its first develop- 
ment, 94, 

Romantic, the idea of, in romances, 
271. 

Rosseau, his eloquence and im- 
petuosity, 318. 

Runic alphabet and inscriptions, 
183. 



S. 



Sacred Scnptures, influence of, 
206. Their pecuUarities of Ftyle, 
112, 207. 

St. Martin and Bonard, their res- 
pective systems, 339. 

Sallust, the writings of, 83. 

Saracens, the progress of, 180. 

Satires, the, of Juvenal, 88, 

Saturn, or Chronos, the fable of, 
4. 

Scandinavian remains, 155. The- 
ology compared with that of the 
Greeks, 156. 

Scandinavians, their influence in 
the West, 230. Their Uterature, 
232, 

Sceptical opinions of the Greeks, 

Schiller, scepticism of, 373, His 
dramas, 379, his philosophical 
works, ibid. 

Shakespeare, his genius and pecu- 
liarities, 287. Compared with 
Milton, 288. Opposition he en- 
countered, 289. His emulation 
and imitation of Spenser, 295. 

Silesian school, its effects on liter- 
ture, 354. 

Socrates, the age of, 28. His te- 
nets, 49, His political influence, 
50, His system of ethics, 101. 

Socratic opinions, the rise and 
progress of, 51, 

Solon, the time of, the proper epoch 
of Grecian literature, 16, 

Sophists and philosophers of 
Greece, 37, 

Sophocles, characteristics of his 



writings, 27. His perfection of 
Greek tragedy, 28. His excel- 
lence as a philosopher and ora- 
tor, ibid. 

Spanish literature, its advantages 
over other nations, 201, 259. 
Its national character, 258. Bal- 
lads, remarks on, 202. Cultiva- 
tion and refinement, 228. Poe- 
try and romance, 256. Then 
characteristics, 257. A danger- 
ous model for other nations, 270. 
Drama, its defects for theatrical 
representation, 283. 

Speech, the great importance of, 7. 

Study of magic in Germany, 245. 



Tasso, the genius cS^ 262. Re- 
marks on his style. 263. Com- 
pared with Dante, -84. 

Teutonic poetry, remarks on, 157. 
Tribes, their peculiarities, &c.j 
174. Philosophy, the, 253, 357. 
Jacob Bohme, ibid. 

Theocritus, the Idylls of, 61. 

Theodoric the Goth, the age of, 
146. 

Theogeny, the, of Hesiod, remarks 
on, 39. Compared with the 
writings of Homer, 40, 

Thirty years' war, the, its injuri- 
ous effects on literature, 352, 

Thucydides, as an historian, 30. 
political institutions of his time, 
31, Of his style, z^^W, 

Tragedies, modern, compared witL 
those of the ancients, 281. 

Troubadours, the age of. 199. 



U. 

Unlearned philosophers, remark* 
upon, 252. 



View of German literature, I93w 



892 



INDEX. 



Virgil's jJEneid, remarks on, 85. 
Its characteristic defects, 86. 

Voltaire, the philosophy of, 314. 
His influence on EngUsh writ- 
ers, 316. His opinions of the 
French, 317. Compared with 
Rosseau, Diderot, &c., 325. 



W. 

War, its influence on Grecian 

literature, 16. 
((Veiland, remarks on his philo- 

oophical system, 360. 



Winklemann, the writings of, 361. 
Women, their social condition 

amona the Greeks, 33. 
Works, historical, of the Germans, 

during the 18th century, 2. Of 

Virgil, remarks on, 85. 
Writers of Greece compaieJ with 

those of Rome and Egypt, l3. 
Writings of Csesar compared with 

those of Sallust, 83. 



X. 

Xenophon, remarks m, as a writer 
of history, 52. His Cyropaedia, 53. 



\ 



THE END 



aUESTIONS 



SCHLEGEL'S LECTURES. 



Page 1. 

What ia the design of this work 1 — 
What alteration has taken place in the 
last century ■?— What was the situation 
of men of letters formerly? 

Page 2. 

Give examples of authors who did 
not address the people 1 — What was 
abandoned to the common people 1 — 
Who were the favourites of the peo- 
ple 1 — What was the state of things in 
Germany between 1650 and 1750? — 
What happened after this? — What is 
remarked of the German language 1— 
What attracted attention to iti 

Page 3. 
To what did men of letters and fash- 
ion direcC their attention? — Of what 
use was the previous study of foreign 
languages 1 — What has become an ob- 
ject of ambition among German 
writers? — What is the author's pur- 

fiose 7 — What took place during the 
8th century 1 — What example is cited 1 
— Describe the change in English lite- 
-ature 1 

Page 4. 

What is the English taste at present 
with respect to national history and 
antiquities 1 — What is the effect of a se- 
paration of the literati and the court, 
and a separation of both these classes 
from the people 1 — What is necessary 
to good taste and literary excellence ? — 
What is the effect of female influence 
on literature? — On what two common 
principles must every work of imagi- 
nation proceed ? — What does the for- 
mation of national character require ? 
— What distinct elements are now 
'jrought info contact which used to be 
separated 1 



Page 5. 

Is the evil complained of entirely rfl» 

moved ?— What is still the case in Ger- 
many? — What privilege is given to 
poets and artists ? — What is said of the 
man of erudition ?— Of the orator?— 
Of philosophy ? — What opinion hia 
gone abroad respecting philosophy?— 
Is it right ? 

Page 6. 

What is the effect of literary dis- 
putes?— Of the multitude of books?— 
How are authors instrumental in caus- 
ing the contempt with which their pur- 
suits are regarded ? — Are there excep- 
tions to the general feeling of contempt 
for literary performances ? 

Page 7. 
What is Schlegel's definition of lite- 
rature ? — What are its several depart- 
ments? — 1. Poetry. 2. History. 3. 
Mora! and Mental Philosophy. 4. Elo- 
quence and Wit. — How does he illus- 
trate the importance of language ? — 
Can reason itself act without language 
as an instrument? — Are thought and 
speech metaphysically distinct 1 

Page 8. 
Can they be disunited in action? — 
How is our estimate of the value of 
language shown ? — Do we make it a 
test of personal respect to individuals ? 
—Do we apply it as a test to nations? 
— How ? — Give an example. 

Page 9. 
What does this example of the trar- 
eller prove? — How may the impor- 
tance of literature be seen in a more 
general point of view ? — What do we 
learn from history on this point ?— 
What gives one nation a great advau- 



394 



QUESTIONS. 



tage over others 7— What is the use of 
a national poetry"? — Do we judge of a 
nation from the extent of its undertali- 
ings or the remarkable incidents of its 
history alone 7 — What else gives char- 
acter and interest to a nation 1 

Page 10. 
Are the great events which happen 
to a nation sufficient to command the 
admiration of posterity l — What is His- 
tory? — Give examples.— How are we 
to estimate the influence of a poet, 
painter or sculptor 1 — Over what other 
descriptions of great men do the poet, 
painter and sculptor have an advan- 
tage 1 — How is it with the legislator 1 — 
The conqueror 1 

Page 11. 
Upon what has the reputation of 
Greece depended 1 — Is this just ) — 
What is remarked of Homer 1 — How is 
his influence compared with that of 
Solon and Alexander 1 — Are such poets 
and philosophers as Homer and Plato 
common 1 — How are they to be re- 
garded when found 1 — What is neces- 
sary to a national literature besides 
poetry, national traditions and history 1 

Page 12, 

What difficulties has the historian of 
literature to encounter 1 — What en- 
couraged Schlegel to proceed 1 — How 
long had he attended to the subject 7— 
What nations claim attention first? 

Page 13. 
How does he propose to treat the 
literature of antiquity ?— What other 
literature will he notice briefly 1 — 
Which has precedence in the order of 
timel — What is his principal object? — 
What does he propose to examine with 
reference to the northern literature? — 
What will be the next topic? Cru- 
sades, &c. — What will form the last 
part of the course ? 

Page 14. 
Does he intimate that he will ofFer 
any new critical opinions? — In what 
respect are the Greeks peculiar ? — 
Whence came their aphabet? — Their 
old traditions and poems ? — Did they 
receive much from this source? — How 
did they appropriate it ? 

Page 15. 
In what respect were the Greeks in- 
dependent? — How was it with the Ro- 
mans ? — The modern Europeans ? — 
Have they improved their possession ? 
— When? — How is the Greek history 



divided ? — What taste was produced 
by the last event? — What was its ef- 
fect? — What would have been the ef- 
fect of the Greeks failing in the war 
with Persia 1 

Page 16. 

What would have been their condi- 
tion ? — What did the other nations con- 
quered by Persia retain? — What was 
the character of the Persian govern- 
ment? — How long was the happy pe- 
riod of Grecian history ? — What com- 
mences with Solon?— Who perfected 
prose? — What gave Athens her pre- 
eminence ? — When did this happy 
period end ? — What was their charac- 
ter after this ? 

Page 17. 
What was their condition in Egypt .' 
— What lies in this short space? (300 
years) — When does the proper epoch 
of Grecian literature begin ? — What 
was the previous state of things ? — 
What traditions had the Greeks ? — 
What was the effect of these songs ? — 
Were they very ancient?— Why are 
the songs of narrative important? — 
What do they express? — What is the 
most valuable portion of early Greek 
poetry ? 

Page 18. 
How were they composed, and 
when?— What change did they under- 
go in Solon's time? — How have they 
been regarded since? — What was the 
object of the Greek rulers in preserv- 
ing these poems? — What threatened 
Greece at this time? — What is the time 
referred to ? — Were all the Greci'an 
states aware of the danger? — When 
was it apparent? — Was Athens aware 
of it ? — How ? — Of what use was the re- 
vival of the old songs? — Does Schlegel 
express doubt of the actual occurrence 
of the Trojan war? 

Page 19. 
What part of the period is certainly 
historical?— Is the story of Helen pro- 
bable ?— Has it a parallel in the middle 
ages? — What remains confirm the tra- 
ditions? — Whose graves do they pre- 
tend to point out? — What monuments 
probably existed in Homer's time?— 
Was it of much consequence whether 
the story were true or not? — Who pro- 
bably regarded it with indifference 1 
— Why ? — How were the Homeric 
poems regarded by the Greeks 1 

Page 20. 
In what respects are they superior to 
the old songs of the Arabians, and th« 



QUESTIONS. 



395 



poems of Ossian ? — What is their spirit ? 
— What do Achilles and Ulysses repre- 
sent 1 — Descril/€ Achilles. — What feel- 
ings are apt tc pervade the traditions 
and recollections of the heroic limes 7 
Page 21. 
Describe Ulysses. — What advantage 
does such a hero give the poet"? — In 
what respects are the Homeric poems 
excelled by those of the north 1 — In 
what does their peculiar excellence lie 1 
— What mode of composition do we 
find in them?— Why is not Homer's 
prolixity tiresome 1 — Is it dramatic? — 
Is that an advantage? — What is said 
about Homer's name ? — What is Homer 
to us? — What is the other explanation 
of his name ? — Which is preferred ? 

Page 22. 
What is said of Milton ?— Of Ossian ? 
— Of the writer of the Iliad and Odys- 
sey? — Were the Homeric poems pro- 
duced in the heroic age?— What two 
worlds exist in them? — What charm 
results from this circumstance ? — What 
political change took place in Greece? 
— What was its effect ? — Was this the 
cause of Homer's being partially for- 
gotten? — Who recalled him from this 
oblivion 1 

Page 23. 
Why does Schlegel say so much about 
Homer ? — To what class of writers does 
he propose to confine his attention? — 
What will he passover?— What period 
of Grecian history does he pass over? 
—With what was it occupied? — Are 
there many remains of it extant? — 
How are the authors of this period 
known to us? — What is the most re- 
markable epoch in the history of 
Greece ? — Why ? — Who was the great 
lyric writer of this period ?— What is 
said of ^schylus ?— Of Herodotus ?— 
Why was Pindar unpopular? 

Page 24. 
What was the character of the Per- 
sian monarchy ? — In what respect is 
Pindar peculiarly valuable ? — What is 
Greek literature in truth? — A. Ionic 
and Attic literature.— What other peo- 
ple possessed a peculiar literature at 
the same time? — How extensive was 
the Doric literature ? — What is the only 
relic of it which now exists? — What 
may we obtain an idea of, from these 
poems? — Are the modern imitations of 
Pindar successful?— Why not?— What 
makes Pindar obscure ? 

Page 25. 
Were Pmdar's poems properly 
.yric'i— What are his characteristics? 



— What personages are his tuvourites 1 
— Who was the next great poet? — 
What were his characteristics? — For 
what was he reproached? 

Page 26. 
What was his favourite subject? — 
What other favourite subject ?-^What 
is said of his Prometheus"? — Who was 
Herodotus?— What is the character of 
his work?— What is the nature of his 
episodes? — Why is his work called 
epic ? — Why is it more properly a his- 
tory ? 

Page 27. 

What is he called ? — Who succeeded 
these writers ? — Who is the first of the 
successors? — For what is Sophocles 
remarkable ?— What period of Greek 
literature does he mark? — What per- 
sonal character do his works indi- 
cate ? — Did the old poets exhibit any 
knowledge of the Deity?— What has 
always been the fate and progress of 
poetry? 

Page 28. 

What is the most favourable region 
for poetry? — What example have we ? 
— What part of the subject does he 
postpone? — Who was the successor of 
Sophocles? — What was his character? 
— By whom was he satirized ? — Was 
the influence of the sophists salutary? 



LECTURE II. 

Page 29. 
What is the subject of the second 
lecture? — What was the subject of the 
first lecture ? — What does Schlegel pro- 
pose to do next ? — What is said of 
Thucydides ? — What made him popu- 
lar in Greece? — What is said of his 
history? — What makes his subject an 
important one ? 

Page 30. 
Of what was Thucydides the inven- 
tor ? — What are the characteristics of 
his method of composing history? — 
Who adopted it? — Did they naturalize 
it successfully ? — Is it quite as easy for 
modern Europeans to do the same? — 
Why not ? 

Page 31. 
How does Herodotus compare with 
Thucydides?— What is the fault of 
Thucydides ? — What various cause-s 
are assigned for his harshness of style? 
—What did he call his history ?—.k«s 
A possession unto eternity. 



396 



QUESprONS. 



Page K. 
Whar is the subject of Aristophanes 1 
—In what point of view are his plays 
valuable ? — What is requisite to judge 
of his merits 7 — What fault is found 
with modern literature 1 — \Miat is the 
fault of the ancient literature ? — ^Vhat 
was the condition of the Greek women 
in the most ancient times 1 

Page 33. 
What in later times? — WTiat does 
Rchlegel say was the effect of republi- 
can government 1 — Was the situation 
of the women every where the same 1 
— What was it in Sparta, and the Doric 
nations 1 — What Asiatic practice pre- 
vailed in Greece 1 — What effect has 
this practice on their literary works? 
— Doe* it extend to other ancient na- 
tions ■? 

Page 34. 
Is it apparent in their great works 1 
— How 1 — ^^^lat good qualities are 
mingled with this' coarseness in the 
■works of Aristophanes ? — Was he a 
great poet? — Is the form of his compo- 
sitions like any thing in modern litera- 
ture? — What may the peculiarities of 
the old comedy be traced to? — What 
were permitted at the festivals of Bac- 
chus^ 

Page 35. 

What use -would the true poet make 
of this licence .' — "Was this the case 
■with Aristophanes ?— To ■what do the 
language and versification of Aristo- 
phanes entitle him ? — What is apparent 
in his serious and earnest poetry ? — 
How are his poems defiled? — What 
makes much of his -wit unintelligible ? 
— What remains after deducting ■what 
is obscure and offensive ? What gave 
him such liberty? — What does the ex- 
istence of such a drama prove, with 
respect to the public taste and cultiva- 
tion? 

Page 36. 

Is Aristophanes fit for imitation? — 
Has he merit as a poet? — What merit 
as a patriot citizen '. — Did he incur per- 
sonal danger ? — How did he treat Eu- 
ripides ? — How Sophocles and ^schy- 
lus? — What other reproach is cast on 
Aristophanes ? — How does Schlegel pal- 
liate his conduct? — Did he go to the 
schools of the sophists ? — For what pur- 
pose? 

Page 37. 

WTiat were injured by sophistry ? — 
What was done by Socrates? — Who 



was Socrates ? — With whom is he com- 
pared with respect to public services 1 
— In what was the Greek philosophy 
deficient 7- — How did the more ancient 
Greek Philosophers treat Homer and 
Hesiod? 

Page 38. 
How do their representations of 
the Gods appear to us ? — How were 
they esteemed by the people of Greece? 
— How did the philosophers regard all 
poetry ?— What -svas the character of 
the Ante- Homeric compared with the 
Homeric poems in respect to philoso- 
phic views? — How were the Ante-Ho- 
meric poems probably related to the 
Asiatic ? 

Page 39. 

\Miat remarkable piece of poetry of 
Hesiod is derived from the Asiatics 7— 
WTiat is probably the truth with re- 
spect to Orpheus ? — Are his views pre- 
served in the Homeric poetry? — 
What is said of the Theogony ?— What 
representations are contained in it? — 
How does it represent the life of the 
physical world ? 

Page 40. 
WTiat is the philosophical character 
of this theology ? — Is this the case with 
Homer ? — In what part of Homer does 
it chiefly appear ?— What is the nature 
of Homer's materialism ? — How is the 
philosophy of Homer compared ■with 
that of Hesiod ?— What is the weakest 
part of Homer's productions ? — Which 
are really most interesting, his gods or 
his men ? — Why ? 

Page 41. 
Had the mythology of the Greeks 
any hidden meaning? — How is the fa- 
ble of Saturn or Chronos explained ? — 
Are there other representations of this 
kind in Hesiod ? — To what were the re- 
presentations of divine or superhuman 
nature unfavourable ? — What remarks 
are made on the hundred-handed giant? 
— How do the Indians represent the 
Deity ? 

Page 42. 
How is Brahma represented ? — To 
what are these representations hos- 
tile ? — What people brought sculpture 
to the greatest perfection? — Why? — 
What is remarked of their poetry ? — 
Was their sculpture more refined than 
their poetry ? — Of what do we always 
find traces in the representations of the 
poets?— What example is given from 
Homer. 



QUESTIONS. 



397 



Pag:e 43. 
How IS this explained ? — What is 
Jhe other example] — To what does 
the poet allude in it ? — What was the 
elFect of their representations with the 
moralists of Greece? — Why did the 
poetical application of these relics of 
another time offend them 1 

Page 44. 

Where must we draw a line of dis- 
tinction ? — To whom are we under ob- 
ligations? — What would the philoso- 
phers have done if possible ? — In what 
respects was the Greek mythology de- 
fective ? — Had the philosophers inquir- 
ed into the nature of Deity 1 

Page 45. 

Where did the poetry and philosophy 
of the ancients originate? — Who were 
the earliest poets and philosophers ? — 
Who taught philosophy in Magna 
Grecia and among the southern Ital- 
ians? — Where does the genius of the 
Greeks appear most rich and inven- 
tive? — What did the Ionian philoso- 
phers reverence? — How is this explain- 
ed with respect to water? — How is it 
explained in respect to fire?^Wliat is 
»aid of Heraclitus? 

Page 46. 

Could these philosophers free them- 
selves from materialism ? — What ex- 
ample proves this? — What did Anax- 
agoras first teach with respect to 
Deity?— What did he teach with re- 
spect to the Universe? — Who reduced 
the atomical philosophy to a regular 
system? — Who made it prevalent 
among the Greeks and Romans? — 
What' does it strike at the root of? — 
Had these doctrines any practical ef- 
fect? — How does the defectiveness of 
the popular faith of the Greeks pre- 
vious to Socrates appear? — Did the 
people believe in the poetical world of 
shades?— Did the philosophers?— 
What appears to have been preserved 
in the mysteries ?— What did both the 
earlier and later philosophers teach 
respecting the immortality of the soul ? 
— Did they believe in its personality ? 

Page 47. 
Which of the philosophers first 
taught the immortality of the soul? — 
What doctrine did he mix with it? — 
What was the object of his society ? — 
Did it last long ?— What succeeded to 
its fall? — WTiat spirit now pervaded 
philosophy ?— How far was sophistry 
or scepticism carried?— To what con- 
34 



elusion did the part> rrive who hela 
to an unchangeable unity in all things"* 

Page 48. 
How did they endeavour to render 
their opinions popular? — How did one 
of the sophists commence his instruc- 
tions ? — How was the intluence of these 
philosophers extended ? — Whom did 
they educate 1 — What did some of them 
profess to know ] — What did they teach 
young men to do ? — What did they pro- 
pose by way of exercise? 

Page 49." 
How did the sophists treat the popu- 
lar, belief? — How morality ? — What did 
they deny ? — What was the political 
effect of these doctrines ? — What spirit 
did sophistry create ? — What philoso- 
pher arose at this time ? — What did he 
teach? — How did he teach the exist 
ence o-f God ? — How did he treat the 
sophists ? — Of what was he the 
founder 1 

Page 50. 
With what was he charged ? — What 
would have been the effect of a preva- 
lence of his mode of thinking? — Why 
was he hated by the sophists'? — What 
was the character of Socrates? — What 
is said of Xenophon and Plato ? — Whose 
disciple was Critias ? 

Page 51. 
How was that injurious to Socrates? 
— Under whose guidance did Socrates 
profess to act ? — What did he mean by 
the Dcemon ? — -What objection is 
brought against Socrates ?— How is 
this explained by the critics ? — How bji 
Schlegel? 

Page 52. 
What circumstances favour his inter 
pretation ? — Did Socrates permit sui- 
cide ? — Did he try to escape ? — What 
was the effect of his example ? — What 
parts of the Greek philosophy does 
Schlegel treat? — What character does 
he give of Xenophon? 

Page 53. 
How does he compare with Plato as 
a philosophic writer ? — What is the 
character of the Cyropaedia ? — How 
far did the influence of the Socratic 
school extend ? — What philosophy pre- 
vailed ? — What is said of Isocrates ? — 
Of his rhetoric ?— What was the fash- 
ionable rhetoric ?— How may this taste 
be useful to us? 

Page 54. 
said of the art employed in 



What 



598 



QPESTIONS. 



writing?— What is saiii of Plato and 
Aristotle 1— What did PJato treat on— 
How 1 — In what did Plato excel all 
others 1 — What is his most stiilving pe- 
culiarity ■?— What is said of Phsedon 
and the Republic 1 

Page 55. 
^\^lat ph'iosophers of Greece exerted 
fhe greatest influence ] — How is Ari^^to- 
tle cliaracterized ?— Plato ]— Theophras- 
tus and his school ] — The later philoso- 
phers ? — Epicureans 1 — Stoics I — How 
may the decline of the Greek eenius 
be traced ? — To what did the influence 
of Socrates's revival of the Greek philo- 
sophy extend ] — Why did it not aflect 
I he poetry ? 

Page 56. 
What was the character of the later 
Greek poetry I — Where do the first 
traces of decline appear ] — How is 
Euripides characterised ] — From what 
(lid the Greek tragedy arise 1 — In what 
respect is perfect harmony required ? 
—Who exhibited iti — Who failed in 
this respect ] — To what purpose did 
he turn the chorus 7 — What are the 
beauties of Euripides's choruses? 

Page 57. 
What is the effect of the want of har- 
mony on his plays ^ — How does he en- 
deavour to remedy this 7 — How is Me- 
nander characterised] — What did he 
invent? — How do we know his method 
of composition 1 — What change had 
come over the dramatic poetry of the 
Greeks? — What question is agitated 
among the critics 1 — What say" those 
who deny the character of poet to Me- 
nander? — What is Schlegel's opinion? 
— What is the modern idea of poetry? 

Page 58. 
What is the peculiar sphere of this 
poetry ? — What is a second end of 
poetry ? — How is it attained most pow- 
erfully ? — Can poetry consist entirely 
n representations of actual life? — 
What does the essence of poetry as di- 
rected to this second purpose consist 
in ? — In what three things does the es- 
sence of all poetry consist ? — Can one 
write poetry without inventive power ? 
— Who was the last original poet who 
represented human life ? 

Page .59. 
How long did the Attic literature 
flourish? — What was the character of 
the Greek writers of the court of the 
Ptolemies ?— In what respect have they 
been serviceable ? — What are their de- 
fects ? — On what account are the epic 



poets of this age \alu ible? — What waa 
the subject of Apollonius ? — What ad- 
vantages had the Alexandrians? — For 
what Was Callimachus remarkable? — 
Who was his Roman imitator? 

Page 60. 
What fault does Schlegel find with 
Ovid's Metamorphoses 1— What hap- 
pens to poetry in its decline? — What 
sulyects does he pronounce unpoeti- 
cal? — What is the fault of the learned 
poetry of the Alexandrians? — What 
should the moderns have done? — What 
was the design of the early Greeks in 
their didactic poetry? — Why did they 
make poetry the vehicle of instruction? 
— What was the character of the early 
scientific Greek poetry? — Did this cir- 
cumstance favour their imitators ? — 
What other circumstance favoured 
them ? 

Page 61 
W^hat species of poetry took its rise 
in the Egyptian court ? — What writers 
cultivated it ? — Is country life suscepti- 
ble of poetical embellishment? — Should 
pastoral poetry be isolated ? — Why not I 
— What is the effect of cutting off pas- 
toral poetry and making it a separate 
department? — What singular circum- 
stance does he mention with respect to 
the origin of pastorals? — What is said 
of the shepherds and shepherdesses ? — 
Of Theocritus? 

Page 62. 

WTiat were the Id^'llsl-To what 
condition had Greek poetry declined? 



LECTURE III. 

Page 6.3. 
What is the subject of Lecture III? — 
What was the consequence of the loss 
of national independence to the Greek 
literature? — What was the state of his- 
torical information ? — Rhetoric ? — Poe- 
try ?— Sculpture 1 

Page 64 
Where did the inventive genius of 
the Greeks now display itself? — What 
was their success in mathematics? — 
Who discovered the true philosophy 
of the earth's motion in this age? — 
Who distinguished himself in mechan- 
ics ? — In Geometry ? — Did they culti- 
vate medical science? — How did the 
Greeks acquire their power over the 
Roman intellect ? — What made Grecian 
cultivation essential to the Romans'? 



QUESTIONS. 



399 



Pa£re 65. 
How wm-e Greeks opposed 1 — By 
whom? — What do the decrees of ban 
ishment prove 7 — What was the origin 
of the extensive influence of the 
Greeks? — How had their language 
been diffused? — In what countries ?^- 
What made a knowledge of it desira- 
ole to the Romans ?— What is said of 
Polybius? 

Page 66. 
Of Livius Andronicus? — Wliat led 
the Romans of high rank to admire and 
imitate the language and institutions 
of the Greeks ?— Why were the Ro 
mans (iesirous to cultivate eloquence? 
— Who condemned it ? — What is as- 
serted of the Roman writers? — What 
shows this ? — Is this a reproach ? — 
Why not? 

Page 67. 
What is the pro])er object of imita- 
tion ? — Into what errors lias the litera- 
ture of Rome fallen ?— Of what is Rome 
the point of union ? — What is required 
of an artist? — What are his master- 
pieces .'—What is required of the poet 
or other great inventive author ? 

Page 6S 
In what is the superiority of the 
Greeks over the Romans manifest? — 
What examples are cite<i ? — What do 
we find in each of these sreat authors ? 
— How do the Roman writers comjjare 
with them ? — What atones for the de- 
fects of the Romans? — In what resi)ect 
is the political activity and greatness 
of the state opposed to the intellectual 
activity of individuals 

Page 69. 
What was necessary to the intellec- 
tual greatness of Athens? — For what 
was Sparta remarkable? — What was 
the tendency of her municipal system ? 
— What did Sparta dispense with? — 
Wherein consists the peculiar merit of 
Caesar or Cicero ? — -What is their 
spirit ? — What idea animates all the 
Roman writers ? 

Page 70. 
Did the Romans borrow every thing 
from Greece? — What did the influence 
of Greek authors and Greek manners 
make them forget? — To what extent? 
— To what do Rcmian writers occa- 
sionally illude ? — What did they adopt 
in plHce of their own ancient ballads? 
—What style of poetry did they thus 
acquire ? — What were the subjects of 
♦he old Roman ballads ? 



Page 71. 

Were they valuable?— In what do 
they abound ?— Under what disguise 
may we still find the stories of the old 
Roman ballads ?— In what historian 
particularly?— What has Niebuhr done? 
— What have we g Mined through his 
menns? — In what sort of verses' were 
the old Roman heroic adventures sung? 
— .'^t what did the ballads aim ?— What 
admixture do we find in them ? 

Page 72. 
What does Schles^el regret with re- 
spect to these ballads?— What other 
reason besides their poetical inferiority 
occasioned the neglect of the old bal- 
lads ?— Are they utterly lost?— With 
what exception ?— who wa.-s the last 
heroic personage of the old Roman 
history ? — When does the historical pe- 
riod of Rome besin? — What perished 
in "the Gallic invasion ?— When does 
the true period of Roman greatness 
commence ? — What songs were then 
composed ? — Were the older traditions 
then valued 1 

Page 73. 
What occasioned their being subse- 
quently neglected ?— What was the 
condition of the Greeks ?— In what re- 
spect did the Romans differ from them? 
— What was the consequence? — What 
literature did they copy ? — Of what is 
Ennius accused by a critic? — Is this 
just?— Of what did Ennius boast?— 
How are poets .apt to estimate the 
value of what they have done? 

Page 74. 
In what respect did Ennius commit 
this error? — What did he despise? — 
Was he a true poet ? — What proves it ? 
Whom did he resemble?— How did the 
imitation of the Greeks proceed ? — 
What part of their literature was most 
interesting to the Romans? — Were 
these imitations always successful ?^ 
Did they pay any attention to the Dra- 
ma? — What was their success? — Who 
were the best tragedians? — What was 
their character ?— What was the fabu/a 
attellana ? 

Page 75. 
Who amused themselves with it? — 
Was this the only original dramatic 
literature of the Roman's? — What was 
the cause of the stiffness and failure of 
the Roman Drama? With what is it 
compared ? — What shows the poverty 
of this literature? — Did the representa- 
tion of foreign manners interest the 



400 



QUESTIONS. 



Romans'! — What amusement did the 
Romans prefer to the Drama'? 

Page 76. 
What was its effect 1 — What is a 
strange thing in regard to their trage- 
dies ] — Was the Roman history fertile 
in subjects of tragedy'? — Why were 
such subjects not used 1 

Page 77. 
Did the political objection apply to 
the whole body of the early traditions 
of Ronie ? — How did it apply while the 
patricians and plebeians were opposed 7 
— How in the time of Augustus I — Why' 
was not Shakespeare embarrassed in 
this w'ay? — Why not the German play 
Wrights? — Of what were the Romans 
destitute ? — What character is given of 
Lucretius ? — What was his chief work ? 
— Its character 1 

Page 78. - . 

Whose philosophy did Lacretias 
adopt?— What is its tendency?— Its ef- 
fect on his poem 1 — In what respects 
is be great ? — What liberty has the poet 
hi the choice of subject ? — How does 
Schlegel divide what he calls the poetry 
of man ? — What does he say of the 
poetry of nature 7— What is the only 
difficulty? 

Page 79. 

Has nature her history of the past ? 
— Her heroic age? — How may we be 
convinced of this? — What are her 
grand features ?— What do ancient tra- 
ditions abound in ? — Do present appear- 
ances indicate former convulsions ? — 
How has Lucretius used these ma- 
terials ? — What is the business of the 
poet with respect to natural philoso- 
phy? — Should he explain scientific 
causes? — How is this illustrated? — 
What is the third mode of using nature ? 

Page SO. 

How is this illustrated ?— Why does 
a poet love solitude?— Is it worth 
while to inquire w hether nature be in- 
habited as ihe poet imagines? — What 
do we find in the writings of the 
Greeks and Romans? — In the northern 
poetry ? — What destroys the harmo- 
nious agreement of the elements of 
poetry ?— What is said of the scientific 
poetry of Lucretius? — How should the 
writers of Rome be classed ? — How do 
,he last ages of the republic compare 
Mth that of Augustus ? 

Page 81. 
What does he s-ay of Cicero ?— With 



what did his contemporaries reproach 
him ?— To what did Cicero owe his in- 
fluence ? — For what is he conspicuous! 
— Wbat philosojthy did he adopt?— 
Of what other philosophers did he use 
the doctrines ? — To what school was 
he hostile ?— Why ? 

Page 82. 
What did they call pleasure? — AVhai 
was the political tendency of Epicurus'a 
doctrines ?— Why are Cicero's philo- 
sophical writings valued ? — What fault 
has he in comrnnn with the other Ro- 
man writers? — Of what have we a 
specimen in Caesar'? 

Page 83. 
■\^^lat two qualities has he in perfec- 
tion 1 — How does he differ from Hero- 
dotus ? — How does Xenophon compare 
with Caesar ? — Have other ancient gen- 
erals written their "commentaries?" 
— For what is SaHust remarkable?^ 
What are his faults?— What fact is ap- 
parent in this first age of Roman litera- 
ture 1 

Page 84. 
"What does the Roman literature owe 
to this circumstance? — How" is the lite- 
rature of the age of Ausustus distin- 
guished ? — What new direction was 
given to Roman genius? — Who were 
the leading poets ? — How were they 
treated ? — How is Propertius charac- 
terized ? — Horace ? 

Page 85. 
"SA^at qualified Virgil to be the na- 
tional poet of the Romans? — Were the 
Romans an asrricultural people? — What 
was Virgil's first work ? — His most per- 
fect ? — What was his error ? 

Page 86. 

MTiich is the best part of the ^neid 1 
—What is its rank ?— What was Virgil's 
own opinion ?— How does Virsil com- 
pare with Ovid and Lucretius? — Why 
is not the JEx\e\d a perfect poem '? — 
\\'hat other poets are injured by imi- 
tation ? — Can the heroic legends of 
one country be adopted by another?— 
Why 1 

Page 87. 

What is the rule with respect to tne 
imitation of dramatic poetry ? — What 
with respect to adopt'm? a foreign dra- 
ma?— Should its form be imitated?— 
What is necessary to the popular in- 
fiuence of the Sta^e?— Where is imita- 
tion most hurtful?— Why ?— What was 
the practice of the Roman lyricaj 



QUESTIONS. 



401 



popls? — How closely did they imitate 
ttie Greeks ] — What is the best proof 
of Horace's Genius?— When is he 
greatest ? — What did the Patricians in- 
vent I 

Page 88. 

To what is Roman satire confined ? — 
What is its favourite topic ?— What is 
the only perfect poetical picture of 
common life ?— For what is Roman sa- 
tire a substitute? — On what does the 
interest of Juvenal's satire depend ? — 
What distinguished the first half of 
Augustus's reign? — What occurred in 
the' latter part ? 

Page 89 

Of what is Velleius an example?— 
Of what was Seneca the head and 
founder? — What was the effect of the 
increased despotism on philosophy i — 
What was its effect on style and ex- 
pression ? — Of what is Lucan an ex- 
ample .'—What are his inconsistencies 1 
—What did the Kotnan poetry come 
back to in his hands ? — Is a historical 
event a proper basis lor a heroic poem ? 
— Does Schlesel consider it necessary 
that it should be a remote event ?— 
What is more important ? — What 
should be the nature of the historical 
event which is to form the basis of a 
heroic poem? 

Page 90. 
Give examples. What was Lucan's 
subject?— What defects had Lucan's 
subject ?— Does Schlegel consider it ut- 
terly bad ?— Who are the last examples 
of the declin.ing taste of the Romans 1 
—What do the works of Pliny show ? 
— What succeeded this age? — Who 
was the great writer of Trajan's reign ? 
—What had Tacitus witnessed ?— What 
in Tacitus is inimitable ?— What is said 
of his style? 

Page 91. 
In what three authors is the utmost 
purity and perfection of the Roman 
language displayed ? — What are their 
respective merits ? 



LECTURE IV. 

Page 92. 
Were literature and philosophy indi- 
genous in Rome ? — Whence were they 
i'mponed ? — When the Scipios besan to 
palronize Greek literature and rheio- 
rk. what did Rome possess ?— What 
was then done by Cato ? — By Ennius? 

34* 



— What IS necessary to complete the 
idea of a flourishing literature ? 

Page 93. 

When did the literature of Rome real- 
ly begin to exist? — Who had the great- 
est share in forming it ? — \^'hat was 
the state of education before his time ? 
— What did he demonstrate? — What 
service did he render the language ?^ 
Who assisted in this? — Ho w^ did Caesar 
aid him ? — How did Varro ? — What is 
said of their era? — What was Pliny's 
panegvric of Trajan? — What followed 
it? 

Page 94. 

How long did the classical period 
of Roman literature last? — What 
science originated then ? — What was 
desired by Cicero and Caesar? — What 
with respect to laws and equity hap- 
pened in Augustus's reign ? — In 
Hadrian's? — What commences with 
Hadrian? — What received increased 
attention ? — Alter Trajan what was 
the comparative state of Grecian and 
Roman literature? 

Page 95. 
Did Greek poetry flourish ? — What 
atoned for its deflciency ? — What 
method of philosophizing was laid 
aside? — What method was used? — 
What was the consequence? — Were 
the Greeks great in poetical genius? — 
What was the peculiar art of the 
Greeks?— What proves this?— Who 
is the most distinguished Greek writer 
of the latter period 1 — What is the 
character of his " Lives?' 

Page 96. 

What is said of his style?— Of his 
remarks ? — What was his character ? — 
What do we find in Lucian ? — What 
does his highest value consist in?— 
What rank "does Arrian deserve? — 
What gives value to the •■ Meditations" 
of Marcus Aurelius " — What was writ- 
ten by Herodiau? — What important 
:-ervice w.-is rendered the Roman State 
by Antoninus Pius? — What made phi- 
losophy desirable] — What evinces the 
growth of infidelity? 

Page 97. 

What is shown in the wo 'ks of Pex- 
tus Empiricus? — What by Lucian?— 
What was the effect of oriental opm- 
ions? — Where can we trace it? — How 
does Plutarch exhibit the Platonic phi- 
losophy ?— What came into vogue?— 
What ceased to preserve a distiiicl ap- 



402 



QUESTIONS. 



pearance? — What philosophy was op- 
posed to Christianity? — With what 
success in Julian's reign T 

Page 98. 
What was the character of the con- 
test ? — What does it form ? — Why does 
not Schlegel enlarge on it"] — What 
three preliminaries are necessary to 
give any satisfactory idea of this con- 
test 1 — What were its minor results'? — 
To what does he confine himself at 
present I 

Page 99. 
Who were the two greatest masters 
of Grecian philosophy'? — Explain their 
different characteristics. — What do we 
see in the first 1 — What in Aristotle"? — 
Which is the model of Greek art? — 
Which of Grecian science 1 — How does 
Plato appear as a controversialist 
against the Sophists'? — What is the 
great leading principle of Plato 1 — Ex- 
plain it. 

Page 100. 
What does Plato regard as the foun- 
tain of all knowledge of God 1 — What 
does he do in the negative part of his 
work? — What in the positive? — Is his 
philosophy complete? — How does this 
appear? — Where? — How does he ap- 
pear in the dialectic art? — What were 
the characteristics of his philosophy 
as he left it ? 

Page 101. 
What was the effect of the connec- 
tion of Plato with Socrates? — What is 
the natural effect of Plato's doctrine? 
What was required to put an end to 
this tendency '? — What was done by 
Plato's later followers ? — Is it easy to 
discern the great principle of Ariatotle's 
philosophy ?— Why not ? 

Page 102. 
What character is given of Aris- 
totle? — What complaint is made of 
him ? — What is the cause of his ob- 
scurity ? — What led him to reject Pla- 
to's source of knowledge ? — How does 
he define virtue?— How does he ex- 
plain the relations of the first cause and 
the universe? — The world of stars? 

Page 103. 

What is the effect of all this?— In 
what respect is this method of philoso- 
phizing good? — Where does it fail?— 
To what does the experience of the 
senses lead?— What are the defects 
ot Aris* •*le s philosophy 1 — What is 



his rank among philosophers 1 — Whal 
is his fundamental idea?— What phi- 
losophers have the same faults 1 

Page 104. 
Were his followers numerous ? — For 
whose faults was he afterwards 
blamed? — Was his influence perma- 
nent? — What doctrine is common to 
Aristotle and Locke ? — ^^What was ac- 
complished by Aristotle and Plato?-— 
Were they understood by their contem- 
poraries ? — How by after ages? 

Page 105. 
What is the amount of their influence 
now? — What is all philosophy now? — 
What distinguishes the followers of 
Plato ?— What those of Aristotle ?— 
In what respects is Aristotle great and 
unrivalled ? — What was compounded 
out of these two elements? — What is 
its character? — In what did the Greek 
philosophy differ from the oriental? — 
What did the Greek writers reverence ? 

Page 106. 
What did they derive from Egypt ? — 
Had they any sympathy with the He- 
brews or Persians ? — With what na- 
tions had they a religion in common ? — 
How were the Hebrews separated 
from other nations ?. — When were the 
Mosaic writings translated into Greek? 
— Who admired them ? — What is a fa- 
vourite notion of the moderns ? — To 
what nations did the belief and the mo- 
rality of the Hebrevvs remain foreign ? 
— Why? — What was the doctrine of the 
Greeks and Romans respecting the ori- 
gin of man? 

Page 107. 
What was the doctrine of Moses ? — 
What is said of this doctrine? — Where 
does Moses say was the earliest dwell- 
ing of man ? — How are the present race 
separated from the elder? — How di- 
vided ? — Is this account of Moses con- 
firmed ?— How ?— What form the two 
centre points in the history of the hu- 
man race ? 

Page 108. 
What did Christianity give to man- 
kind ? — What is the use of the Mosaic 
remains ? — What nation was civilized 
before the Jews? — What had they be- 
fore Moses's time? — What advantage 
have the Mosaic writings ? — Do al! 
admit this ?— What other theory is 
there respecting the Egyptians ? — The 
Chinese?— The Scandinavians ? — The 
Indians ? 



QUESTIONS. 



403 



Page 109. 
What nation was most akin to the 
Hebrews 1 — How did the Persians 
treat the Hebrews? — ^How did they re- 
gard the Egyptians ?^What facts re- 
lating to human sacrifices are men- 
tioned ? — What was common to the 
religion of both Hebrews and Persians? 
— What title is given to Cyrus in the 
Hebrew prophecies ? — What were 
some of the features of the Persian re- 
ligion ? — Had the Greeks such notions ? 
— By whom were the Persians perse- 
cuted ? — What was Alexander's policy 7 

Page 110. 
His purpose ? — What was required 
for its accomplishment ?— Whai was 
the great error of the Persian faith ? — 
What have modern speculators done? 
—What historical evidence is cited? — 
What does it prove? — In what consists 
the superiority of the Hebrevys 1 

Page 111. 
What did they preserve? — -What 
merit belongs to the sacred writings 
of the Hebrews ? — What is the charac- 
ter of the preceptive part? — The his- 
torical ? — To what is that preferable ? — 
In what were the Hebrews inferior ? — 
What is the character of the book of 
Job? 

Page 112. 

Where do the peculiar faith and con- 
fidence of the Hebrews chiefly appear ? 
— How long was the flourishing period 
of the Hebrews? — What points in their 
history are noticed ? — What other peo- 
ple exerted great influence over them ? 
— In what does the Persian religion 
resemble the Scandinavian ? — What 
shows the antiquity of Indian mytho- 
logy? 

Page 113. 
What do their monuments resem- 
ble?— What do they indicate ?— What 
ideas did the Indians embody in sculp- 
ture ? — Of what do their two heroic 
poems treat? — How is the hero Ramo 
characterised ?— His fate ? 

Page 114. 
What place does this poem of Ramo 
hold ?— What is the other great Indian 
poem ? — What is its subject ? — Have 
other nations similar fictions ?— De- 
s-v-ibe them ? — Are these two poen\s 
very ancient ? — What is the most re- 
markable do2;ma of the orientals?— 
Did the Greeks assent to it ?— Where 
18 it now believed ?— Has it practical 



efTects 7— What flict shows that the 
Egyptians did not believe it? 

Page 115. 
How did the Greeks dispose of tl eii 
dead? — Was i an ancient custom?— 
Of what is it expressive ? — What Avas 
the usage of Zoroaster adopted in 
Thibet?— Under what idea?— What is 
most agreeable to nature ? — Explain 
this.— With what is the Egyptian em- 
balming irreconcilable ? — Why ? — How 
have others explained it? 

Page 116. 

What kind of associations existed in 
Egypt?— What did Pythagoras proba- 
bly derive from them ? — On what did 
the Indian doctrine of transmigration 
depend ? — How did it consist wi"fh Pld- 
tonism ? 



LECTURE V. 

Page 117. 

What is the subject of Lecture V7 — 
What knowledsre had the Greeks of 
the East ? — How obtained ?— What 
commerce? — What knowledge of 
China ? — Whence and how did they 
obtain their knowledge of the doctrine 
of transmigration? — How ancient is 
the Indian trade ? — Who gave it a reg- 
ular direction ? — How was it under 
the Romans? 

Page 118. 

What is remarked of the African 
trade ? — What proves the ancient con- 
nection of Egypt and India? — What 
exemplification of this connection has 
occurred in our own days ? — How may 
the people of the Hindoos be regarded ? 
— How did Alexander and his army 
probably regard them ? — What did 
they find in India ? 

Page 119. 

What resemblances did they dis- 
cover? — What particular deities com- 
mon to Greece and India ? — What was 
their ruling passion ? — What have mod- 
ern researches confirmed? — With what 
does the Greek description of India 
agree? — What descriptions of enthusi- 
asts have always existed in India?— 
What two ruling sects did the Greeks 
find in India? 

Page 120 
What recent sect have they? — Was 
it popular in India ? — Whither did its 
disciples go? — What Joes the word 



404 



QUESTlONi 



Samenean express 1 — What other word 
is derived (rom the same origin] — 
What is the older doctrine of India? — 
What is remarked of the fabulous chro- 
nolog^y of the Brahmins? — Who have 
lidmitted it as true? — What is the oppo- 
site error ]— What is the most ancient 
Indian work ?— What does it embrace? 

Page 121, 
How is it composed 1 — What is said 
of its maxims and doctrine l — Was this 
doctrine influential ^--How does it dif- 
fer from the Greek religion 1 — How do 
tiie Indians regard the good and evil 
of this life ? — How does their doctrine 
affect the relations of life .' — What does 
this affect in their literature ?— What 
do we discover in their descriptive 
poems ? 

Page 122. 
What IS the first thing which strikes 
us in the Indian poetry ? — What exam- 
ple is given ? — What is observed of its 
moral feeling 1 — What of the self-immo- 
lation of widows ] — What is the En- 
glish policy towards the Hindoos 1 

Page 123. 
Is this apparently necessary 7 — What 
proves this ] — Will ihe burnings pro- 
bably be continued 1 — Why ] — What 
origin has been assigned to these burn- 
ings ] — Does Schlegel assent to this 1 — 
W'hy not ? — What other theory has 
been adopted ? — To what caste was it 
formerly confined 1 

Page 124. 
What work gives the best idea of In- 
dian poetry 1 — By whom translated? — 
What is its character ?— What account 
is given in the Indian mythology of the 
origin of poetry and rhythm? — What 
is the character of the Indian poetry? 

Page 125. 
Do you recollect the story of Bal- 
miki?— Have the Indians any heroic 
poetry ? — What poetry is remarkable 
for joy and the inspiration of love ?^ 
Who is its hero? — What is the charac- 
ter of the composition ? — What may we 
easily draw from this poem? — What is 
said of Hipotadesa ? — Of what is it the 
fountain? — Of what is the narrative 
the vehicle ? — For what is it calculated ? 
— What is the character of the English 
translations ? 

Page 126. 

Of the French ? — From what are 
they translated? — What is said of the 
tJagavadani ? — What other writers be- 



long to the same class? — For what are 
the works of the Mahometan authors 
valuable? — What are their defects? — 
What is observed of the Ouknekhat?— 
What requires caution in the study of 
Indian literature? 

Page 127. 
What great men are noticed in the 
Indian works ? — When were they writ- 
ten ] — How have many of the Indian 
works been preserved and trans- 
mitted ? — Have the Indian monuments 
any hieroglyphics on them ? — From 
what was" the Phoenician alphabet 
formed ? — Had the Indian a similar 
oriain? — Where did the use of decimal 
ciphers commence? — Was it a great 
discovery? — To what have the Indian 
writings'been exposed? 

Page 128. 

What is said of the Puranas? — Were 
they falsified ? — What work is freest 
from this defect ? — What is said of the 
law book of Menu ? — What is Jones's 
opinion ?— What is Schlegel's?— What 
is observed of the Bhogovotgita 1 — 
What does it contain? — Of what is it 
an episode ?— What tendency prevails 
in it ? 

Page 129. 
What is its doctrine ? — What belief 
is inculcated in it ? — What does it re- 
semble in this respect? — What is the 
prevailing worship of Hindostan ? — 
What is the difference between it and 
Budhism ? — What is observed of the 
recluses? — How do they differ from 
the Christian recluses of Egypt? 

Page 130. 

What is the effect of the Inaian sys- 
tem of seclusion on the mind ? — What 
is the Christian doctrine according tt 
Schlegel ? — What is the difference be- 
tween Christian and Indian recluses, 
accordinir to Schlegel? — What does he 
say of the Trinity?" 

Page 131. 
How does the Indian differ from the 
Christian Trinity? — From the Per>ian 
doctrine? — What is the Indian idea of 
incarnatioii ? — What is said of the 
Greek poems and works? — What are 
the predominant Christian feelings ? — 
What is the most predominant feeling 
of the Indians? 

Page 132. 
How does the Indian explain the 
outward appearances of life? — Wha' 
is his idea of the government of the 



QUESTIONS. 



405 



world ? — What is the most remarkable 
point of resemblaTice between the In- 
dian and Christian doctrine ? — What 
phrase have they in roinninn ] — In 
what 's the Cluisiiaii religion sujie- 
rior ? 

Pa?e 133. 
What does Christianity acknow- 
ledge? — What is the effect oC this ?— 
How do the systems di'fer in regard to 
heavenly blessiuiis .' — What is "the ef- 
fect of "the Inilian doctrine ? — What 
have certain critics supposed? — Wtiat 
is Schlegel's opinion ? — How does he 
illustrate it ? — -What is said of the 
fathers ? — What is a more national 
opinion ? 

Page 134. 
Whence comes the first spark of 
light respecting the soul ? — What does 
the extended knowledge of different 
nations and religions show ]-^Whom 
do the Persians resemble in their reli- 
gion ? — In their poetry and mythology ? 
— In their manners ? — Whom do the 
Indians resemble in their mythology ? 
— In their morals and |)hilosophy I — 
With whom had they communication? 
^Who conijuered them ? — What was 
the effect of the concjuest by the Per- 
sians 1 — By Alexander ? 

Page 135. 

What did the Indians probably obtain 
from Egypt ? — When was Christianity 
diffused on the coast of Malabar I — 
When was a Christian mission sent 
from Egypt to India ?— With whom 
were they then connected in trade ?— 
What does a writer of the 16th century 
say ? — What was the effect of the Ma- 
hometan conquests ? — Of the Crusades? 
— When were the opinions of the 
Asiatics introduced in Europe ? 

Page 136. 
When was their influence apparent 1 
— What did Origen believe ?—Wh.U is 
said of the New Platonic philosophy ? 
— What were its errors ? — Who wislied 
to substitTite it for Chri.stianity .' — What 
occasioned the persecution of the 
Christians ? — What was Diocletian's 
design ?— Under whom did Ciiristianity 
gain temporal power? — To what was 
the victory owing? — Is it ascribed to 
the emperor? — Was the genins of the 
old religion entirely overthrown ? — 
What proves this 7 — What was Julian's 
haracter 1 

Page 137. 
How did he attack Chr'stianity ? — 



What had Christianity to contend with 
after this attempt of Julian ? 



LECTURE VI. 

Page 138. 
What is the subject of the 6th Lec- 
ture ? — What three periods of literature 
has he examined ? Why was the first 
an easy task 1 — Where was the case 
different? — Why ? — What was his pnr- 
l)ose there ?— What did his task require 
him to do ? 

Page 139. 
What is the principal object of atten- 
tion in examining the authors between 
Hadrian aiid Justinian ? — What would 
be the effect of examining this period 
in the usual way? — Were literary in- 
formation and literary facilities widely 
diffused in this period ?— What charac- 
ter does he give of the age ? — Did it 
abound in auThors of original genius ? 
— Did it produce much in poetry and 
eloquence 1 

Page 140. 
Was the Greek language preserved 
in its purity ? — What is due to the 
Greek fathers? — How do the writers 
of this age compare with Plato ? — 
What is remarked of certain epochs 
in literature? — What is the duty of the 
historians of literature? — Howwere the 
parties matched in the great contro- 
versy 1 — Which had the advantage at 
the beginning of the contest I — What 
was the last fine season of the Greek 
literature? 

Page 141. 
Who were the first great Christian 
writers ? — Had the heathen party ta- 
lent on their side ? — How long ? — How 
was it in the West ? — How did its lite- 
rature compare with the Greek ? — In 
what were the Romans deficient? — 
What is the greatest work of the later 
Latin literature? — What is its charac- 
ter ? 

Page 142. 
What distinctions were kept alive 
in the Christian ase? — What has been 
the influence of Roman jurisprudence 
lU Modern Eu'rope? — W'hat are the 
wo elements of middle age literature ? 
-What was the object of the Latin 
Christian literature? — Of the vernacu- 
lar literature ? — Who were the first pa- 
trons of modern literature ? — Whai 
was their object? — Which the most 
pleasing part of middlt age literature J 



406 



QUESTIONS 



—For what is the I>atin part of their 
literature remarkable 1 

Page 143. 
With what did the after harvest of 
Latin literature commence? — When 
was there ii nearly total pause? — Who 
had the superiority then I — What oc- 
casioned a revival .' — Who were the 
models of the Romans now] — Who 
formerly ? — Was the change Ibrtuiiale ] 
—Why I 

Page 144. 

What difficulties had the Romans in 
copying the Greeks 1 — What is said of 
the Roman language ? — What were its 
wants 1 — Was it capable of improve- 
ment? — What was the effect of the 
scriptures '] — What example is given ] 

Page 145. 
What appears in their translation of 
the sacred songs of the Hebrews ] — 
Is Latin well adapted to music ? — Why 
was not the language peimanently 
improved^? — What~ was the effect of 
the papal power on literature? — What 
is said of the Latinity of the Spanish 
writers? — Was it consiuered bad in 
Cffisar's time 1 — When were the pro- 
vincialisms more apparent? — Where 
were most of the first Latin fathers 
born? — What was the Lingua Rustica } 
— Of what is it said to be the origin ? 

Page 146. 

WHio was the most eloquent of the 
Latin fathers ?— What is said of him .' 
— What change took place in the 
Latin language ? — With whom does 
antiquity end ?— What was the efiect 
ofthe first introducrionot Christianity? 
— What art did it benefit ?^What new 
style of architecture was introduced? 
— What example of it ? 

Page 147. 
Who built it?— What is said of the 
term Gothic ?— What is said of the an- 
cient music ?— Of sculpture?— Of the 
representations of Christ and the Vir- 
ein ? — What is said of poetry ? — Of the 
Pasan mythology ?— Of the Christian 
psalms and hymns ?— What were tiieir 
models ? — Of'the poetical descriptions 
of Christianity ? 

Page 14S. 

Where do we find notices of the 
German poetry ?— What songs are 
Bpoken of?— W'hat is said of the my- 
thological poems? — What kept alive 



the spirit and strength of their poeliy 7 
— What softened atfd beautified them 1 
—What has been the influence of the 
chivalrous poems ? — What Teutonic 
nation first possessed historical heroic 
poems ? — When ? 

Page 149. 
What was their favourite subject?— 
What other heroes ? — .What monument 
of Gothic liierature have we?— For 
whose use was it made ? — What did 
Theoderick favour? — What is said of 
Joriiandes the historian ? — What per- 
ished with the Gothic nation?— Who 
preserved in part the monuments of its 
greatness ?— Whv ?— How was it in 
Italy?— Why? 

Page 150. 

What did Charlemagne collect"? — 
With whom is he compared? — What 
have we still extant ? — Of what have 
they the marks ? — What two poems 
have we of this ancient date? — What 
oath does Schlegei cite ?— What does 
it prove ? 

Page 151. 
What else does it prove? — What do 
the Scandinavian legends say of Odin? 
— What does the testimony of the An- 
glo-Saxons favour ?^^Mien does Schle- 
ze] think he lived ? — Why was he un- 
known to the Romans and western 
nations? — To what class does he be- 
long ? — What characters did he proba- 
bly maintain ? — Did he probably make 
changes? — Did he come from Asia? 

Page 152. 
What did the Scandinavian collectors 
do ? — What did they confound ? — W'hat 
legend does Tacitus give? — How did 
the ancients consider such legends? 
— How did they apply their mytho- 
logical theory ? — What term did they 
accordingly apply to every wandering 
hero found in 'foreign traditions?— 
What idea did Tacitus probably adopts 
— Were the historical songs and heroic 
poems written ?— Why not ? 

Page 153. 

How long did they probably remain 
traditionary? — How was it with the 
prophetic songs? — Did the Germans 
probably have an alphabet of their 
own? — ^XVhat is said of the Runic al- 
jihabet? — How widely are Runic in- 
scriptions diffused? — Where does he 
think the Runic alphabet ma)' have 
come from ? — What is proved by his- 
tory respecting the German nations 



i 



QrESTJONS. 



407 



on the Baltic 1 — What worship had its 
seat there I 

Page 154. 
How were the Runic characters em- 
ployed .'—How is this proved ?— When 
did the theology of Odin cease in Saxo- 
ny .' — What relfcs of it remained ? 

Page 155. 
What nT>immei!ts in the forests? — ! 
In poeiry ' — In t'^.e customs ] — Wli^t ' 
succeeded to the prophetesses and 
mandrakes ? — -Where did the theology i 
of Odin find an asylum ? — What re- j 
moved it from thence 1 — What do we i 
find in the Scandinavian remains ? — j 
To what poem are we chiefly indeined I 
—What is its date I — What are found | 
n its later parts? — What is the char- 
acter of its best passages? 

Page 156. 
What distineuishes the Scandinavian 
from the Greek theology ?— What was ■ 
the character of ihe Greek? — Of the' 
Scandinavian ? — What does it resem- ! 
ble ? — What does it teach ] — Upon what i 
does the interest of this tragedy de- I 
pend ? — What is said of Balder .' I 

Page 157. I 

What other poetry originated at the 
«ame time? — How did the Teutonic 
nations show their love of poetry ? — 
What examples are given I — Are "they | 
successful ] — What is'their use ?— What 
form did they take ] — What war song j 
is still extant ? — What passage of it is 
referred to ? 

Page 15S. ■ 

Who notices the custom referred to ? ■ 
—What shows the attention of Chris- 
tian Germans to heroic poety .' — What 
is the date of the Niebelungen-lied ? — 
What is the rank of that poem ? — By 
what is it distinguished? — What is 
said of its language ? 

Page 159. 
What have the heroic legends of all 
nations in common ? — What have the 
Nibelungen-lied and the legends of 
Troy and Iceland in common? — What 
does the Nibelungen-lied abound in? — 
What the opening lines I 



LECTURE VII. 

Page 160. 
What is the subject of the seventh 
lecture? — How are the middle ages 
represented? — Is this just? — What" is 



the fact with respect to the substantiaj 
p^irt of li^.ature and civilization? — 
What is extremely doubtful with re-_ 
spect to the periods of literature? — 
How was it in Rome ? — Are there mo- 
dern examples? 

Page 161. 
What is literature in its widest 
sense ? — What should we not expect 
in literature ] — Which has the priority, 
invention or refinement ? — What was 
the period of invention with the 
Greeks ! — Its character? — What subse- 
quent period corresjionds with thnt ? 
—In what respect? — What is true of 
nations as well as individuals? — What 
age was the spring time of the western 
nations ? — In what other point of view 
besides the poetical one may literature 
be regarded ? 

Page 162. 
Which department has develoiied 
the vernacular dialects of Europe? — 
What literature preserved the inherit- 
ed knowledge of the nations? — Under 
what view might we wish that the 
Latin literature had not e.xisted ?— 
What did its use injure"?— What custom 
does he considei barbarous and ruin- 
ous ? — In what department was it 
chiefiy disadvanta?eous ? — What have 
perished among the Germans ? — What 
works have lost their influence by be 
ing written in Latin? — Give examples. 

Page 163. 

What is said of Petrarch ?- Who made 
the same mistake ? — When ? — What 
made I.atin necessary? — Of what was 
it the bond ? — How was it considered ? 
^When did Latin cease to be a living 
language ? — What prolonged the error 
as to its real nature and value ? 

Page 164. 
\Mien may a nation or an age be 
charged with barbarity" ? — Did such 
total ruin ever take place ? — What ex- 
ample of wilful destruction of ancient 
literature is mentioned ? — What is its 
apology ? — Were the collectors and 
transcribers of the middle ages apt to 
destroy works ? — What have occasion- 
ed losses ? — Have such things hap- 
pened recently ? 

Page 165 

What unfortunate losses happened 
even in refined ages of antiquity ? — 
What are we accustomed to lanteiit ? — 
What curious fact with respect to Aris- 
totle's works is mentioned ? — When 
did this occur? — Is it probable that 



408 



QUESTIONS. 



valuable works were lost by mere 
carelessness 7 — When was the mulii- 
plying of MS. attended to 7— More than 
in ancient times 1 

Page 16G. 
What was the scientific education 
of the first part of the middle ages 7 — 
What had the first place 7 — What next 7 
^What of rhetoric 7 — Authors of 11th 
century 7 — Of the mathematics 7— What 
was the effect of the increase of 
wealth 7 — What have we reason to 
lament 7 

Page 167. 
What was the extent of the separa- 
tion 7 — What is said of Charlemagne 7 
— Of Bruno 7 — Of the Saxon C<Esars7 
^Of the Churches 7 — Of Germany, in 
the period from the 10th to the 12th 
century 7 — Of the reproach against the 
Teutonic nations 7 — Of the Goths in 
particular 7 — What was their religion 7 
— What was their conduct and policy 
in the Roman provinces 7 — What is 
the only exception 1 

Page 168. 
What took place under Theodoric 7 
— When did the true misery and barba- 
rism begin 7 — What comparison is pro- 
posed 7 — In what respect did Western 
Europe excel 7— In what did the By- 
zantine empire 7 — What is the matter 
of chief importance 7— What Teutonic 
nations were not Christians 7 — What 
was the effect of this 7 — What age does 
Schlegel consider to be the darkest 7 — 
Wliere was there light even then 1 

Page 169. 
What was done by the Saxons of 
England 7 — What countries did they 
enlighten 7 — Where does he place the 
period of revival 7 — Of what were the 
foundations laid in the dark ages 7 — To 
what is Western Europe indebted for 
her superiority 7 — Had the Arabs 
greater advantages for promoting 
sciences than the Christians 7 — What 
sovereigns are contrasted in this re- 
spect 7 — What lesson is taught by the 
result 7 

Page 170. 
For what is Chai-lemagne entit ed to 
gratitude 7 — Whose merits are supe- 
rior 7— In what respect 7 '—What was 
the effect of the Danish expeditions 7 — 
What disturbed Charlemagne's ar- 
rangements 7 — What was the charac- 



' See Tamer's Anglo-Saxons, and 
Churtofl's Early English Church. 



ter of <h jitefature under the Saxoi. 
emperors 7— What writers are men- 
tioned 7 — Of what was Saxony tht 
centre 7— What is said of the " Monkish 
chronicles 7" — Of their writers 1 

Page 171. 
What reproaches are absurd 7 — ■ 
What is the best situation for a writer 
of history 7 — What historians enjoyed 
It 7 — Are their merits now recognized 1 
-^\n what was Germany superior 7 — 
In what were France and Englancl 7 — 
What writer flourished in the 9th cen- 
tury 7— What others are mentioned 7 
— What was the interval of chaos and 
confusion for each nation 7 

Page 172. 
What circumstance retarded the cul- 
tivation of the Teutonic languages 1 — 
What is said of the Goihic languages? 
— What is said of the Anglo-Saxon 7 — 
What were composed in it 7 — What 
caused it to pass away? — What was 
the consequence 7 — When did the 
third polishing take place 7— What be- 
gan to be developed then 7— To what 
was the situation of the High Dutch 
of that period analogous? 

Page 173. 
Is it true that the German is pure 
and original? — Show that it is not 7 — 
Why are its origin and early develope- 
ment worthy of attention ? — Who 
spoke the old German?— What facts 
shew its wide diffusion? — Which of 
the German dialects was the language 
of the poems collected by Charle- 
magne? — Prove this? 

Page 174. 
How does he explain the origin of 
the High Dutch 7— How did the Goths 
extend and modify it? — How was it 
modified in the south? — How was the 
mixture of languages in southern Ger- 
many occasioned 7 — The intermixture 
of Latin? — Which was the first polished 
Romanic dialect? 

Page 175. 

What two dialects were first regu- 
larly developed 7 — How may they be 
considered 7 — What three other Ro- 
manic dialects are mixed with the 
Teutonic? — Which is the youngest? — 
What makes it mixed 7 — What are 
its characteristics 7 — What is said of its 
literature 7 — What was the effect of the 
Crusades 7 — What Is the Gay Science 1 
— Where did the poetry of love flour- 
ish first ? — Where next ? — Is Provencial 



QUESTIONS. 



409 



B livino 'ansuage 1 — Are any works ex- 
iaux, M ji 1 

Page 176. 

When did the gay science flourish in 
GerniHiiy 1 — Who perfected it in Italy 1 
— When ] — What was its era in S|)aiii .' 
--What poet there 7 — How was the 
poetry of love affected by national pe- 
culiarities ? — How does it dilfer from 
the poetry of chivalry 1 — How was the 
form of love poetry varied 1 — Was it 
always sung 7 — Did the Germans bor- 
row their love poetry from the Proven- 
cials?— Prove that they did not? — What 
did some of the Geriiiaii princes do 7 — 
What does that prove 1 

Page 177. 

Are the German different from the 
French and Prdvenoial love poems 1 — 
What is the most pleasing feature in 
the German love poems 1 — How is it 
explained 1 — -What is said of King 
Richard's song 7 — What ol)jection is 
made bv critics to the German love 
Bongs?— How is it disposed of?— What 
is said of Laura and Petrarch? 

Page 178. 

Why must we not expect much va- 
riety in lyrical poetry! — What is the 
second criticism on the love poems 7 — 
How is that objection disposed of? — 
Was love a violent passion in the age 
of chivalry ? — What do the histories o( 
that use show?— What is nevertheless 
the character of its poetry 7 — What 
arose from the high estimation of the 
female sex ? 

Page 179. 

How did the German poets differ 
from the others 7 — What are their 
characteristics 7 — What is remarked 
of epic poetry 7 — The epic poet 7 — Of 
dramatic poetry 7 — \Miat ase was the 
yonth of Modern Europe 7 — What after 
the crusades stimulated the European 
imagination ? — Where were the foun- 
dations of chivalry laid ? — -What my- 
thology kept its hold in the imagina- 
tion ?" 

Page 180. 

What gave these superstitions a new 
life? — Why? — Where did they intro- 
duce a change? — What countries did 
they conijuer? — -Whose history did 
they reduce to the shape of romance 7 
— What sort of event was the battle of 
Roncesvalles ? — Of what was it never- 
theless the theme ?— What is said of 
Ihe song of Roland? 

35 



Page 181 

How did the poets represent these 
subjects 7 — What machinery was intro- 
duced 7 — What sort of characters and 
adventures were introduced 7 — Whose 
travels furnished materials ? — What 
character did poetry assume ? — Whose 
writinss furnish an example 7 — What 
is his character 7 



LECTURE VIIL 



Page 182. 

W'hat is the subject of Lecture VIII 7^ 
How many sets of fables and histories 
from which the subjects of the chival- 
rous poems are taken I — Which is the 
first ? — lis character 7 — Second 7 — Its 
character ? 

Page mi. 
The third set?— How is the subject 
modified in this set? — W^hat is said of 
Arthur 7- Of Tristam ?— What is the 
tone of this poetry? — What beautifies 
and ennobles it? — Is it successfully im- 
itated now ? 

Page 184. 
What is the true end of poetry ? — 
Which is the most famous poem of 
Chivalry 7 — What is placed by the side 
ofit?— What was the object of the poet- 
ical historians of Arthur and his Round 
Table .' — With what does this not inter- 
fere 7— What is said of Graal 7— What 
is the apparent object of these poems? 
— What is said of Lessing 7 

Page 185. 

What peculiar character had the 
third set of fables 7— What other fic- 
tions diverge from these 7 — What does 
he now propose to consider ? — Of 
what nature was the influence of the 
Crusades 7 — What did the poets prefer 
for a subject ? — Was this influence con- 
siderable? 

Page 186. 

What are the two best Oriental fic- 
tions? — Who was Ferdusi ? — In what 
did the elder Arabian poetry consist 7 — 
Has it any peculiar mythology 7 — What 
is necessary in order to unuerstand it? 
— What other poetry does it resemble? 

Page 187. 
W^hat is the spirit of the Arabian 
songs ? — What is its disadvantage ?— 
What incident in the life of Mahomet 
is referred to? — What appears from 
the Arabian Tales ? — What do the crien- 



410 



QUKJsriONS. 



talists ronsider to be the origin of this 
mythology of wonders ? — Does it ap- 
pear that the Arabs had original ciilti 
vated poetry, not of Persian origin 1 

Page 188. 
What sort of machinery was known 
m the North before the Crusades 1— 
Were the noilhern and Persian super- 
stitions iilenticHl? — What is said of the 
Persian Book of Heroes'?— Why is it 
important"? — How is Dschemschid de- 
scribed 1 — What contest is represent- 
ed ? — What do we perceive in all these 
fictions 'I 

Page 189. 
What were prevalent in Europe du- 
ring the middle ages ? — What is the 
difFereiice between the Persian and 
Christian systems I — What dues Chris- 
tianity recognize? — What do these re- 
semblances prove? — What are the later 
romantic poems of the Persians 7 — To 
what do they belong i — What do they 
resemble 1 — With what important dif- 
ference 1 

Page 190. 
How do the fabliaux differ from the 
Arabian tales ? — How did they reach 
Europe 1 — Did any of the European 
novels go to the East! — Did Europe 
borrow entire heroic poems from the 
East 1 — What is said of the fabulous 
nistory of Alexander? — Of the legends 
of the wars of Troy 1— What was the 
heroic age of Christendom i — How is 
his illustrated ? 

Page 191. 
What other efTect of the Crusades is 
apparent? — What did the chaotic mix- 
ture occasion? — By what standard is 
the merit of romantic fictions mea- 
sured ?— What is the essential mark of 
distinction between the fictions of 
Christendom and all others ? 

Page 192. 
What does he propose to consider 
next ? — With what does he commence ? 
—Why?— Why Italy last ?— Towards 
what did Italy lean? — When did the 
Awakening of modern German poeti-y 
commerce? — When did the first flour- 
ishing period cease ?— What still con- 
tinued to Maximilian's time?- — What 
was the course of things to the 16th 
century ? — What took place then ? — 
What sort of culture before Barbaros- 
ea 1 — Why was Latin so much used ? 

Page 193. 
Why did the empsrors write Latin 



poems? — What made a common Ian 
2uage desirable? — What improved 
German in Frederick's reign? — Who 
were real patrons of German li'era- 
ture? — Where did the Nibelungen-lied 
probably orisinate? — How does this 
appear ? — What nation was partial to 
Attila?— Why ?— What is said of At- 
tila's court ? 

Page 194 - 
What inconsistencies are noticed? — 
Where does Srhlegel ])lace tiie last 
edition of the Nibelunsren-lied ? — Who 
l)robably wrote it ? — What is its char- 
acter ? — In what compositions is the 
influence of the Crusades apparent? — 
What clidvalrous fictions were most 
popular at first? — What allterwards? 

Page 195. 
What is Schlegel's beau ideal of a 
chivalrous poem"? — Who has come 
nearest it? — Wliat is the character of 
some of the German romances about 
Tristram ? — Who is the greatest of the 
German poets ? — In what respects ? — 
What is said of his hero?— With what 
Italian poet is he compared? — In what 
respect does he resemble Aristotle ? 

Page 196. 
What does he say of tracing resena- 
blances? — With what should we coiffl 
pare poems ? — What does this old Ger- 
man poetry resemble ? — What best 
expresses the spirit of the middle ages ? 
— How is the Christian architecture 
characterized ? — What is its best 
model ? — Was it invented by the 
Go 

Page 197. 
Is it Moorish ?— Why not ?— When 
was ths most flourishing period of this 
Christian architecture? — Who was its 
inventor ? — What was its probable ori- 
gin ? — What is necessary to make a 
building a specimen of the fine arts ? — 
What architecture is most symbohcal? 
— What does ii express ? 

Page 198. 
What do the parts express 1 — What 
are the decorations ? — What does the 
whole express ? — What was the ten 
dency of the Germans in the 14th and 
15th centuries ? — What is said of Rey- 
nard the Fox ? — What is its meaning ? 

Page 199. 

What are the two last specimens of 

the elder German poetry ? — For what 

are they valuable ? — Where did thd 

spirit of chivalry remain longest 1— 



QUES'riOAS. 



411 



What was the fate of their pnetrj^ in 
France 1 — In Ensrland 7 — Which has the 
l)est ballads? — Who were the chief 
French poets of this period 1 — Did En- 
gland share in the French literature ] — 
What is ssid oC Provence ? 

Page 200. 
To whom (lid both the English and 
French chivalrous poetry belong? — 
What is said of the Romance of the 
Rose? — How does the French litera- 
ture of that period compare witii ihe 
Spanish and Italian ? — Was ihe French 
language then perfected ? — What pre- 
vented the progress of language in 
France and England? — In what con- 
sisted the riches of the English litera- 
ture of that period? — The French ?— 
What tendency is apparent in the 
French ! — What is the character of 
these Memoirs ? 

Page 201. 
Who is the first of these writers? — 
What advantage has the Spanish lite- 
rature? — When was the Cid produced I 
What is its character ? — What is the 
essence of all heroic poetry and mytho- 
h)gy .' — What are specimens of the less 
serious view of heroic life .' — Give ex- 
amples ? — Are there any of these comic 
touches in the Cid I 

Page 202. 
Give examples. — Where is there a 
spirit of more delicate ironj' ? — What is 
the character of the German Transla- 
tions ? — Are the Spaniards rich in bal- 
lads '—What is their character ?-V\'here 
do such poems generally abound ? 

LECTURE IX. 

Page 203. 

What is the subject of the 9th Lec- 
ture ?— What has lie done in the pre- 
ceding Lectures ?— Why was the Ital- 
ian literature passed over till now?— 
How is the elder poetry of Italy di- 
vided ? — For what are Petrarch and 
Boccacio remarkable besides their em- 
inence as authors I — Did chivalry affect 
Italian literature as it did French, Ger- 
man and English ? — What is said of 
Dante ? 

Page 204. 
Of Petrarch 1 — On what did he found 
his hopes of fame?— On what does it 
really rest? — WHiat is evident in Boc- 
cacio?— In his style?— In his works ?— 
What incongruities ? — What is the sub- 
ject of some of his chivalrous poems? 



— What does he shew in this choice? 
— Ill what respects was Dante supe- 
rior ? — What does his w'ork compre- 
hend ? 

Page 205. 
Were there any other works of this 
class ? — Into what three classes is the 
poetry of the middle ;;ges divided?— 
What does he mean by the last species? 
— Does allegory influence the other 
classes ? — Give examples ? — By what 
was the allegorical spirit encouraged ? 

Page 206. 
What are the two most striking pe- 
culiarities of the Bible ? (See pages 206 
and207.)— What are the sacred writings 
tree from ?— Is this the case with philo- 
sophy ?— Is this simplicity apparent in 
the scripture poetry ?— How do they 
compare with Greek poetry? 

Page 207. 
Who are the great Christian poets of 
moiiern times !— In what respect do 
ihey resemble the scripture poets? — 
What is the second peculiarity in the 
scriptures ? — What may the Holy Book 
be considered in one point of view?— 
What wa.- the etFect of the prohibition 
of images on the Hebrew imagination ? 
—Oil the Mahometan ?— Is the symbol- 
izing spirit apparent in the Christian 
scriptures ? — What has been the effect 
of this symbolical spirit on literature? 
— Has It been corrupted ? — How? 

Page 208. 
What would have been the best 
model for Christian writers ? — What 
would have been the effect of adopting 
it? — Does Schlegel consider Christian- 
ity itselt a proper subject of poetry ?— 
What does he except ? — What caiinot 
Christianity be ? — Ol what should it be 
the ground-work? — Why is it above 
all poetry ? — Why should the relation 
of Christianity to literature be studied? 

Page 209. 
Was it natural for Christian writers 
to devote their poetry to religion ? — 
What kind of influence has been the 
surest and most successful? — How was 
it with the chivalric poetry of the mid- 
dle ages ? — What is its spirit? — Its per- 
sonages ? — What happens when the 
poet attempts to reveal directly the 
mysteries of religion ?— Where is th«" 
defect apparent ? — What is said o' 
Dante? 

Page 210. 
Of his genius? — Of his "oem ?-■*>! 



412 



QUESTIONS. 



ms plan .'- Of the unity and connection 
(»r his poem ? — What is the chief mis- 
fortune? — Was he more iiitellieilile to 
his contemporaries ]-\Vhy ? — Did he 
require a commentator even in his own 
times? 

Page 211. 
Is Dante the Homer of Italy 1— What 
.8 the foundation of his power? — What 
is his ranl\ ? — What is tlie only reproach 
against him 7 — Explain this? — What 
are modern Ghiliellines ? — How do they 
compai"e with the old ? 

Page 212. 
How does Ghiliellinism appear in 
Dante?— What is his chief defect?— 
For wliat is Petrarch most remarka- 
ble ? — How is he distinguished from 
the other love poets of )iis ajre? — What 
have some writers pretended ? — How 
is this disproved ? — Is he allegorical oc- 
casionally ] — How does he rank as a 
versifier and improver of language? — 
Who was the polisher of Italian prose ? 

Page 213. 
Wha* is his only fault? — Is it com- 
mon to Italian writers ? — What three 
poets discovered new paths and new- 
styles of composition ? — What were 
they respectively ? — Had they follow- 
ers ? — Were they successful I — What 
happened in the 15th century ] — Who 
was the first famous predecessor of 
Ariosio?— What is the character of 
Pulci 's work 1 — Who was more suc- 
cessful? 

Page 214. 
What is said of Boiardo?— To what 
extent is Ariosto indebted to his prede- 
cessors? — In what does his real supe- 
riority consist?— Where did the clivval- 
rous poetry of Italy attain perfection ? 
— What other arts also flourished 
there ? — How does Italy compare with 
other countries in respect to chivalry ? 
— What repressed it in Florence? — In 
Venice? — How was it in Naples ?^In 
Rome? 

Page 215. 
What was the character and influ- 
ence of the early Italian poetry? — What 
art chiefly flourished in Italy in the 15th 
century ? — To what two things is Italy 
chiefly indebted for its glor\^? — What 
advantages had Italian artists? — Were 
ihey Intimately ac(iuaiiited with the 
'jintique? — Did Italian art take its pecu- 
liar character from Christianity ? — 
What is said of Raphael ? 



Page 216. 
What occasioned a spirit of imita- 
tion ? — What are examples? — What 
was its effect ? — What other country 
besides Italy suffered ? — Give exam- 
ples. — What other (pauses corrupted 
the German language ? 

Page 217 
In what respect was it more unfortu- 
nate than Italy ? — Where is the fault ?— 
What took place in the age of the Cru- 
sades ? 

Page 218. 
What was the effect on the 13th cen- 
tury ? — What was the most gen.eral 
consequence ? — Which is the most bril- 
lyiut ])eriod of European history ? — 
What events signalized that period ? — 
When did the third revolution in 
science take place ? — What produced 
it? 

Page 219. 
Was It as great in moral and metaphy- 
sical as in physical science ? — In the 15th 
century what checked the improve- 
ment of vernacular languages and 
poetry ? — In what does the whole his- 
tory of modern intellect consist? — 
What did some of the Italian scholars 
desire? — To what was mythology ap- 
plied 1 — How far did this go? — What 
was done by Roman ecclesiastics? 

Page 220. 
What were the consequences? — 
How was Machiavelli affected? — What 
is his character as a writer? — With 
whom is he compared ? — What is his 
great work ? .\ns. The Prince. — How 
is it justified by some writers ] — How 
is it better exjjlained ?— What was ap- 
parently his object? 

Page 221. 
What is said of his parallel between 
the Germans and French ? — What is 
the mam principle which he has de- 
fended ? — What has been the conse- 
quence of his ability and .success in hia 
principal work ? — What is his chief 
fault ? — What was the state of things 
before his time ? 

Page '232. 
How does Machiavelli treat the oli 
system ? — What are his principles ? — 
What is necessarily founded on a be- 
lief in the Deity? — What is the efTect 
of atheism? 

Page 223. 
A.re hll the political disunion ano 



QUESTIONS. 



413 



corruptions of Europe to be charged 
on Machiavelli 7— Does Machiavel I i "de- 
serve tlie indignation of posterity 1 — 
Why ] — What were the two great dis- 
coverie:5 of the 15th century I — What 
othera 1 — What was their effect on 
society ? — How is it ilhistrated .'—Is the 
use made of an invention more impor- 
tant than the invention itself? 

Page 2ai. 
How was the invention of gunpow- 
der regarded ? — What was objected to 
it ?— Is this just?— Where did it do in- 
jury? — What lias been the effect of the 
use of paper ? — How has the press been 
abused ? — How might this have been 
prevented 1 



LECTURE X. 

Page 226. • 
What is the subject of Lecture X ? — 
What has been already considered? — 
What is the most important literature ? 
— What is the right of each nation? — 
What does he say of languages? — Is 
there no difference in languages ? — Ex- 
plain it? 

Page 227. 
What is the most favourable point of 
view for a general survey of literature ? 
—Why?— What advantage had the 
Romanic nations? — Whatdid it cause 
in the middle age 1 

Page 228. 
What exception? — Why? — What 
prejudice prevails respecf ing Spanish ? 
^What is the fact ? — How was it with 
the Italian?— With the other dialects? 
—When were French and English de- 
velo|ied ? — To what was Spanish early 
ajiplied ? — What contributed to its early 
developement? — What was the char- 
acter of its histories ? — Its philosophy ? 
— What of the German language? 

Page 229. 
How has it been regarded? — By 
whom is it cultivated ? — What is unat- 
tainable without it ? — Why ? — What 
was the rank of Italy and Germany in 
the middle ages?— What nations took 
the lead in the last 200 years ? — In what 
is the German less happily developed?-- 
How is this defect atoned for ? — In what 
respects is it next to the Greek ?— How 
lo the Germans rank in the imitations ? 

Page 230. 
In what literature were the Germans 
35* 



late? — A what period was it fertile? — 
What does Schlegel anticipate? — What 
northern people exerted most influence 
in the middle ages ? — What does Scan- 
dinavia include ? Ans. Sweden, Den- 
mark, and Norway. — What was the 
extent of the Scandinavian influence? 
— Explain this. — Where was their poe- 
try preserved ? — What did they add to 



Page 231 
How did they improve their acquisi- 
tions ? — What example is given ? — 
What process did the poetry of the 
Icelanders and Scandinavians under- 
go? — How was it in Denmark? — How 
are the ballads to be regarded ? — How 
extensive was the old Scandinavian 
literature 1 — What occasioned a change 
in it? — Explain how. 

Page 232. 
What country did Scandinavia re- 
semble ?— Explain this.— What are the 
four leading countries of Europe ?— 
Explain this.— What differences does 
Schlegel propose to explain? 

Page 233. 
What did Russia possess in the early 
p<irt of the middle ages ? — Of what ad 
vantage was this ? — What kept Russia 
distinct from the rest of Western 
Europe ? — What did the Bohemians 
possess under Charles IV ? — What was 
the nature of their literature? — What 
is aflirmed of the Polish language? — In 
what did the Sclavonies differ from the 
other nations ? — First ? — Secondly ? — 
Lastly ? 

Page 234. 
What did the Hungarians undoubt- 
edly possess? — What was their favour- 
ite subject? — Did Christian writers use 
it? — What poetii did Revaj save? — ■ 
What IS said of Bela .' — What were his 
materials ? — How should we regard 
him ? — What other theme had the Hun- 
garian poets I — What do the chronicles 
prove ? 

Page 235. 
When was this poetry destroyed ? — 
What saved German poetry in the 18th 
century? — What happened in the 
Turkish invasions of Hunsary ? — What 
have the Hungarians retained ? — When 
did heroic poets appear ? — Who in our 
own age ? — What is the right of every 
nation"? — What languages should be 
studied with a vi« w to the improve- 
ment of our own ? 



414 



QUESTIONS. 



Page 236. 
For what purposes should a foreign 
language not be used ? — What must 
be done when it is already in use? — 
What is the duty of the higher orders 
of society .' — What shouldevery man 
of education do? — What is the' effect 
oil a nation when its language becomes 
rude and barbarous 1 

Page 237. 
When does the danger cease 1 — To 
what century do the "great improve- 
ments in European literature and 
^^cience belong? — When did the intel- 
lectual cultivation in which it origi- 
nated take its form? — What were the 
subjects of controversy ? — What effect 
had the Reformation"? — Was it alto- 
gether salutary— What was salutary ? 

Page 2:33. 
What was its political effect? — What 
was its effect on the imitative arts? — 
How did it operate in Germany? — In 
the Protestant Netherlands ? 

Page 239. 
Does Schlegel think the Reformation 
was productive of liberty of thought ? 
—How does he argue ? — What was the 
immediate effect of the Reformation 
upon philosophy and freedom of 
thought? — What examples are cited? 
— What does he say of the persecu- 
tions ?— Of Grotius 1 

Page 240. 

What took place in Italy? — What 
turn did philosophical talents take 
there ? — How do the defenders of the 
Reformation beg the question at issue ? 
—What is proved by the example of 
Beveral nations 1 

Page 241. 
Did Protestantism encourage poetry 
at first? — What did it encourage ? — Of 
what does Schlegel propose" now to 
give a history ?— What philosophers 
has he already noticed ? — When did 
Germanj produce any 1 

Page 242. 
What is not the reproach of modern 
Europeans? — What is? — What did 
they derive from the Arabians ? — What 
is the best thing in Aristotle's philoso- 
phy ?— Where does he fail ?— What sys- 
tem did he found 7 — How was the evil 
atoned for 1 — ^What is the character of 
his moral system ? — What is its chief 
value ■? 



Pa^e 243. 
Of what does Spain present an exam- 
ple ? — What is the example ? — Were 
all the evils of the scholastic system 
chargeable upon Aristotle ?—- What 
came into fashion with it? — What two 
notions were generally connected with 
Aristotelianism? — Why did Christian 
philosophers study Aristotle ? — What 
were the causes of the false and scho- 
lastic turn of philosophy 1 

Page 244. 
Where was the spirit of sect and di- 
vision nourished ? — To what were the 
Christian philosophers indebted for 
their best things? — Was the scholastic 
philosophy peculiar to the middle ages 'i 
— Where else had it shewn itself? — 
What is its main cause ? — What its 
consequence? — Why was the philoso- 
phy of the middle age defective? 

Page -4:4.5. 
What error on the one hand? — On 
the other hand? — Whaf is said of the 
mvstic philosophy ? — Wh«re did it pre- 
vail?— Recently ?'— What old fashions 
are revived ? — Does Schlegel ridicule 
secret intiuences 7 — Where are they 
out of place? — What are their conse- 
quences ? — Where is this depicted ? 

Page 246. 

What examples are cited "^ — Had 
they merits nevertheless 1 — Who were 
quacks and pretenders ? — During what 
yeriod did mystic writers flourish? — 
What was their school called ? — How 
were their works useful ? — Who is 
mentioned? — His character 1 — ^Vho 
have brought Tauler into notice? 

Page 247. 

How does he compare with later 
writers ? — Is mysticism a new fashion 7 
— How old is it"? — What is apparent in 
the philosophy of the middle age? — 
For what w-ere France and England 
distinguished ? — The Italians ?—nie 
Germans ? — -Where had Aristotle the 
2 reatest number of followers ?• — Wt re 
Plato? 



LECTURE XI. 

Page 248. 
What is the subject of Lecture XII — 
What was the last preceding subjecf) 
— How extensively did Aristotle's sys- 
tem prevail ?^What higher system su- 
perceded it 1— What was its 'tendeF f 



QUESTIONS. 



415 



fn pnrticulars ? — What u pon the whole 1 
— What proves its superiority 1 

Page 249. 
Who were its disciples 7 — How was 
it affected by the restoration of Greek 
learning ? — How were these adv.tn- 
tages counter-l)a]aiiced 1 — What was 
the effect of the revival of learning on 
Aristotelian philosophy! — How were 
individual students affected ? — Give an 
fixample. 

Page 250. 
Where and when did these errors 
prevail 1 — What other philosophy was 
brought np ? — With what effect? — 
Why"? — When did Epicureanism come 
into fashion ? — Wiiat is the epoch of 
the 15th and 16ih centuries called ?— In 
what respect was it a second birth of 
the sciences 7 — In what respect was it 
not 7 — Was an inward, living and total 
change upon philosophy prmluced by 
the Reformation 7 — Did it essentially 
alter the two main divisions of science 7 

Page 251. 
Of what was Luther almost entirely 
ignorant 7 — What were Melancthon's 
views 7 — What occasioned the re-es- 
tablishment of Ai istotle 7 — What was 
the cause of his supremacy 7— What 
caused mistrust of Platonism 7 — In 
what countries did Aristotelianism pre- 
vail 7 — What did it continue to be 7 — 
What happened in Italy 7 — In Germany 
and England? 

Page 252. 
Are philosophy and science confined 
to any class in society 7 — Were they in 
Greece 7 — Shew this. — What were 
the first preachers of Christianity 7 — 
Do such men e.xist in all ages 7 — What 
have they been and what have they 
done 7 — Do these remarks apply to 
poetry 7 — Give examples. — What Ger- 
man pliilosopher is mentioned 7 

Page 253. 
What was he 7 — Who were his fol- 
lowers?— What does the existence of 
a poetry of the vulgar prove? — Does 
this apjily to popular philosophy 7 — 
What was the character of the Teu- 
tonic philosophy? — What gave it a ten- 
dency to secret modes of operation ? 

Page 2.54. 
What opinion of Lessing is noticed 7 
— How is it proved 7 — Is the secrecy 
an unfortunate circumstance 7— Does 
Schlegel consider the Keformatinn an 
mfortunate circa uisiaiice ? — Why 7— 



Have all the evil effects which were 
feared been realized 7 — What happened 
to the Platonic mode of philosophizing 
after the Reformation? — Wiiat retained 
its sway 7 

Page 255. 
What division now took place 7— 
Who were the first ^reat restorers of 
erudition 7 — Their character ? — What 
followed the separation 7 — What ap- 
peared in the ISth century 7 — WhMt 
was the state of art and poetry 7 — What 
poetry should be considered together 7 

Page 256. 
Where was the spirit of chivalry and 
the poetry connected with it j)re>ei \ < d 
longest? — What was tlis seiifi'd flioi- 
acter of their heroic rom?:iices .' — V\b;;t 
principle recuis again heie .' — \\ liat 
new Ibrm of composition grew up 7 — 
What was successfully cultivated in 
the 15th cen^i.ry 7 — By what poets?— 
Who composr^d the Spanish literati 7 — 
What should the poetry of Spain be 
called 7— Why 7— What flourished in 
Catalonia? — What was its last and best 
production? — What is said of its hero 7 

Page 257. 
What poetry of Spain swallowed up 
all the rest 7 — Wh-at people on the 
peninsula preserved a sei)arate na- 
tional poetry? — Is it much connected 
with the Castilian 7 — What influence 
had the Arabs? — Where the greatest? 
— Why is this 7 — Give the historical 
sketch. — What romances and songs 
grew out of these events? 

Page 258 
What is their chamcter? — What has 
been their influence on the subsequent 
literature of Spain 7 — What three things 
enriched the garden of Spanish poetry ? 
— What came in under Charles V. 7- 
Did the style meet with opposition 7— 
Did the various elements of Spanish 
poetry harmonize? — Was it national 7 
— What has been its character since 
Charles V. 7 

Page 259. 
From what point of view is literature 
most easily contemplated 7 — How does 
the Spanish literature stand the mora] 
test? — How does it conifiare with the 
Italian ? — In what were the Italian 
writers deficient 7 — Give examples.— 
What is said of Petiarch 7 — Who were 
most national 7^What defects have 
they 7 — How are the literature and 
poe'try of Spain characterized ?— Theil 
historians?— Poets? 



416 



QUESTIONS. 



Page 260. 
lias this been overlooked? — What 
injustice has been done the Spaniards? 
— Which are the two most national 
literatures 1 — What remarks are made 
en the Enghsh 1 — Whom do the Span- 
ish critics 'prize most 7 — To whom is 
Garcilaso and his contemporaries inte- 
rior 1 — What is the character of their 
poems? — What forms of poetry rank 
above the lyrical 1 

Page 261. 
When the old chivalric romances 
were turned into epics in other coun- 
tries what took place in Spain? — What 
poem is an example of the historic ? — 
What is the character of the Araucana ? 
— What is the first of all the national 
lieroic poems of the Spaniards ? — What 
advantage had Camoens?— How does 
he besin?^What is his model at the 
beginning? — How does he abandon it? 

Page 262. 
What does he introduce besides the 
story of De Gama? — What does his 
poem embrace? — How was he regard- 
ed by his countrymen? — What is the 
most interesting part of his poem? — 
Who came after Camoens ? — What was 
his subject? — What were its advan- 
tages? " 

Page 263. 
Has Tasso made the best of his sub- 
ject and materials?— What hindered 
his success? — W^as he more hampered 
by his Virgilian model than Camoens ? 
— To what class of poets does Tasso 
I)elong ? — What are the most beautiful 
parts of his poem ? — What is the char- 
acter of Tasso's lyrical poems? 

Page 264. 
How does he compare with Ariosto ? 
^Where are his verses sung ?— How 
did Tasso shew his own dissatisfaction 
with his works ?— What was it at first ? 
^How did he chanse it?— What else 
did he attempt? — Who imitated him 
in this particular ? — What did Tasso 
lay aside in the Creation ? 

Page 265. 
Does Schlegel condemn concetti 7 — 
Are Tasso's often beautiful ? — How is 
uniformity excused ? — In what respects 
should a poet be richer and more va- 
rious? — How does Camoens compare 
with Tasso in this respect ? — Is he 
pqual to Tasso in tenderness? 

Page 226. 
To whom does Schlegel prefer Ca- 



moens? — What anecdote of Tasso is 
cited ?— What is said of Tasso's poeti- 
cal language ! — What happened after 
his time? — How does Guarini compare 
with Thsso ?— What is his chief work 1 
— Its character ? 

Page 267. 
What is the character of Italian the- 
atrical literature ? — How are its defects 
compensated ? — What shews the popu- 
lar estimation of the Italian lyrical 
drama? — What parts of the Pastor 
Fido are best?— Did Guarini indulge 
in concellil — How is Marino character- 
ized ? — How did the poetry of Spain 
differ from the Italian ? 

Page 268. 
Their theatre? — Has the Spanish 
poetry a model age? — Who are their 
classics ? — Was the poetical language 
of Spain less perfected and less'fixed 
than that oi Italy ? — Who is their great- 
est writer ?— Of what is he the model 1 
— What is the character of his greatest 
vvoi k ? 

Page 269. 
What IS the character of the poetry 
of Cervantes ?— Of his other works 1 



LECTURE XII. 

Page 270. 
What is the subject of Lecture XII? 
—Why is Don Quixote a bad model? 
— What advantages had Cervantes in 
prose fiction ?— What are authors in 
fiction anxious to do ? — Give exam 
pies ? 

Page 271. 
What is their idea of the romantic 1 
— What observation of a philosopher is 
quoted ?— Is it correct ?— What is it 
necessary to determine? — What have 
been the chief subjects of attention ? — 
What has been neglected ? — -Has 
Schlegel attempted to supply the de- 
fect? — What must we remember above 
all things? 

Page 272. 
What difficulty does the true poet 
easily overcome ? — What is neverthe- 
less the natural effect of the precision 
of the present ? — What should not be 
represented ? — What are the proper 
subjects of poetry ? — How is the spirit- 
ual world to be treated ? — How the 
actual and present? — How traditions? 
What is said of Homer ? — How is i» 



QUESTIONS. 



417 



applied "? — What is the relation be- 
tween poetry and rime .' 

Page 273. 
Does he condemn works written on 
the opposite theorj'1 — What srent 
poets have done so ] — What is said of 
Richard.-on ?— Where lias Spanish fic- 
tion sncceeded belter than in romance 7 
— Explain the nature oMyrical poetry? 

Pa?e 274. 
Heroic? — Of what are both, children ? 
— How does dratuatic poetry ditFer 
from them .'—Why did the theatre-s of 
Madrid, London and Paris liourish a 
ceiimrv before those of Gv^rniMiiy and 
Italy 7— Why did tiie theatre of Madrid 
arrive at jierfection first of all .' — \Vh;it 
makes it worthy of attention I 

Page 275. 
What did it disdain to imitate? — 
Who took an opi)osite conrs'e? — What 
were Lope de Vega's faults ? — What 
idea is described ?— How is it a source 
of fertility in an individual author? — • 
What ancient examples have we? — Is 
Lope too prolific ? 

Page 276 
How did he write? — What merit has 
he? — Why is rapidity of composition 
injurious in the drama? — What is the 
essence of dramatic composition? 

Page 277. 
What does Lope possess in abun- 
dance? — What do the ordinary Sjian- 
ish dramatists display ? — What error 
do certain critics commit? — What is 
Calderon's rank ? — What defects had 
Sjianish poetry before his time ? — What 
was the error of I, ope? — What was its 
eflTect? — Who carried his faults to the 
highest pitch ? 

Page 278. 
What is well worthy of attention in 
the history of Spanish poetry ? — Of 
what is it a correction ? — What lesson 
does it- teach us ? — What s[)ecies of 
drama are placed in the lowest scale 1 
— What is the second order of the urt ? 
— In what case would Shakespeare be 
called the first of all poets, ancient or 
modern? 

Page 279. 
What in the opinion of the author 
should be the real art of the dramatic 
poet ? — What is wantins in many cele- 
brated dramatic works ]— What exam- 
ple is given in Dante.' — What is the 
first of the three modes of the high, 



serious, dramatic represeyitafii ns ?- 
The second .' — The third ? — What trage- 
dies are examples of the first mode? 

Page 280. 
Who had a peculiar fondness ffir this 
mode? — What constitutes the perfec- 
tion of this kir.-d of irage.ty ?— What, ex- 
amples are 2iv(-!i in .Hscliylns of tiie 
sectuid kind ' — Wh;it exainides of ilie 
same is there in Sophocles .' — Fur 
whom is the Third mode ol draMin ic 
conclusion best adanied .'— '\\ ho is he 
first and srreatest of nil ma-ter-^ in ihis ? 
What tw'o of his jiieces are mentioned ? 
— In what does the Christianity of this 
poet consist ? 

Page 2.S1. 
What is his character ? — In what 
does the essence of the romantic con- 
sist ? — How might all poetry seem to 
have some claim to the epithet, ro- 
mantic ? — Is the romantic inconsistent 
with the anciei:t and the true anti(iiie I 
— What examples of the contrary are 
given ? — What is said of the romantic 
in the ancient tragedians ? 

Page 282. 
For what are ^schylus and Sopho- 
cles worthy of admiration? — To whom 
is the romantic opposed? — Are there 
any intermediate steps and blendings 
between these three species of drama- 
tic representations ? — Are they ever 
completely sei)arHted ? — Upon what 
does the opposition of the ancients and 
moderns depend? — Do we ever find 
anions the ancients the third species 
of tragic conclusion ? — Do w^e ever find 
among the moderns instances of the 
first kind ? — Why cannot the woik-< of 
anti(iuity furnish a fit rule for our imi- 
tation ? — Can there be a rule in highei 
drama and tragedy, a rule useful fol 
all nations? 

Page 2S3. 
Why cannot any modern nation lay 
down" effectual laws for another? — 
Why must every nation invent its own 
forin of the drama ? — By whom should 
Calderon be studied as a distant speci- 
men of excellence ? — Why is not Uie 
externii] form of the Spanish dram^ 
suitable for Northern Europe? — What 
is the chief fault of Calderon ?— How 
would the eflTect of the denouement be 
increased ? — What fault has Shake- 
speare ? 

Page 284. 

What is generally the conclusion of 

Shakespeare's drama's ] — W'honi does 



418 



QUESTIONS. 



the author think that Shakespeare re- 
sembles more than a Christian? — How 
does the Spanish coined)' compare 
with that of Germany 7 — What was the 
state of the poetry" of Southern and 
Catholic countries during the 16th and 
17ih centuries 1 — How was it aflected 
by the Reformation in other countries 
of Europe] — Where was poetry first 
cultivated in a rich and beautiful man- 
ner 1— What manifests this] 

Page 285. 
What models did Spenser and Milton 
follow ] — What is said of the three 
greatest poets of Ensland in regard to 
the literature of the 16th and 17th 
ag-es? — What example does the Fairy 
Queen present us 7 — What is the char- 
acter of Spenser's writings 1 — Whom 
does he resemble 1 — What is the con- 
sequence of a language bein? formed 
of two different dialects 7 — Who is the 
most Teutonic of English poets? — Who 
inclines to the Latin part of the English 
toneue ? — What is the character of the 
allegory which is the ground-work of 
Spenser's chief poem? 

Page 286. 
What circumstance is sufficient to 
interest us in the Fairy Queen ? — 
Where are we first introduced to a 
personal knowledge of Shakespeare 
and his feelings 7— When had Shake- 
speare recourse to sonnets? — What do 
these sonnets show? — For what are 
his lyrics very important ? — What do 
they show to be his character 7 

Page 287. 
Of what is Shakespeare the master ? 
—In what respect might he be cnlled a 
satirical poet 7 — Whnt do we perceive 
in the midst of all the bitterness of 
Shakespeare? — What appears in Ro- 
meo, in Hamlet, and in F.ear? — What 
is found to be the charncter of Shake- 
speare if we examine into the internal 
feelinss of his spirit?— How did he re- 
gard the drama? — How were the im- 
provements which he made in it con- 
ceived 7 

Page 2S8. 
With what is the fearfnl. the horri- 
ble, the revoltin?. blended in his 
poetry 7 — What does the author be- 
lieve to have been Shakespeare's char- 
acter 7 — What is the character of the 
pieces with which he illustrated the 
heroic period of Engli-h history 7— 
Why is the form of Shakespeare's 
wiiinjs good and excellent 7 — How is 
■Shakespeare regarded in Germany 7 — 



In England, what renders the under- 
standing of his character much more 
difficult ? — Why should not Germans 
adopt the form or sentiment of his 
writings as their exclusive model 7 

Page 289. 
What was the condition of Spenser's 
and Shakespeare's writings under 
Charles I. 7 — To whom was Shake- 
speare an object of hatred 7 — What 
great poet did they produce, however 7 
Towards what is the art of poetry en- 
tirely directed in Milton's works 7 — 
What is the main defect of Milton 7— 
How did he afterwards seek to remedy 
this 7 — Under what disadvantage did 
he labor when compared with Dante 
and Tasso .' — How did he seek to make 
amends for this ? 

Page 290. 
in what, therefore, does the excel- 
lence of his epic worth consist? — Upon 
what was the admiration which was' 
bestowed upon Milton, during the 18th 
century, founded 7 — Has it been advan- 
tageous to English poetry that it has 
followed Milton more than Spenser 7 — 
— Why would any exclusive standard 
be injurious to the English language? 
— How only can the wealth of the En- 
glish language be appreciated 7 — After 
the Puritansliow was the English lite- 
rature infected ? — When only did the 
intellect recover from the oppression 
under which it had lain? — Whiit proves 
how deeply the foreign taste had taken 
root 7 — What did the French literature 
possess under Francis I. ? 

Page 291. 
What is the character of the French 
historical memoirs? — What peculiar 
talent was early developed among the 
French 7 — What two examples of this 
are siven 7 — What is the character of 
the "Id French lansruage in the hands 
of .Montaigne ? — \^'hat is the true char- 
acter of the old French lansrua^e, as 
eathered from Marut and Rabelais 7— 
Was the chansre effected in the old 
French language by Richlieu, fortunate 
or otherwise ? — What was the first at- 
tempt of the French Academy, founded 
by Richelieu ?— In what is their succesa 
of this attempt shown? 

Page 292. 
How does Racine rank as a poet? — 
What could be wished, however, in re- 
gard to the poetry itself? — How could 
the French language and poetry have 
preserved its old poetical freedom 7— 
From what, however, is this forgetful- 



QUESTlOiNS. 



419 



ness of all that has ffone before, insep- 
aral)le7 — What was the cnnseoiience, 
in France, of tlie Ireedom of tlie En- 
glish in literature and in laneuatre .' — 
Whence arose the curriiption ol the 
French taste 1 

Page 293. 
When was the true flourishing pe- 
riod of the French poetry "? — Who was 
the Corernnner nf ihe ?reat poets of the 
aee of I,onis XIV. .'—Who in the ]^ih 
century was their follower ?— Wiiar is 
the true (iefftct of French poetry? — 
What is the chnracter of Ronsard's 
works.' — What is the basi.<of his Fian- 
ciade ? — -Wiiat would have been the 
best subject for nti epic jioem. for a poet 
of old France?— Why 7— What is the 
only difficulty in it 7— What is the only_ 
dilficuhy in the story of the "Maid of 
Orleans," by Chapelain 1 

Page 294. • 
How was RoMsard regarded during 
nis lifetime, and afterwards 7 — What 
great French poet somewhat imitated 
Ronsard 1 — Why is it that the French 
consider the trasredy as the best part 
of their literature 7 — Why is it that 
French tragedy has very rarely repre- 
sented French heroes 7— What is the- 
great defect of French literature 7 — 
How did Voltaire attempt to remedy 
this 7 

Page 295. 
In what did he succeed beyond any 
of his countrymen 7 — What does the 
French tragedy express 7 — Why is it 
not adapted for the model of any other 
theatre 7 — How is French tragedy most 
commonlv indeed of? — W^hat is said 
ofRacine?— Of Corneille 7— What as- 
sertions are always contained in the 
prefaces of Voltaire 7 

Page 296. 
What have Lessin? and others 
proven to be faults of the French 
poets 1 — What observation is made of 
Boileau7 — What fact proves the injury 
which his precepts had on French 
poetry 7 — What gives the most perfect 
idea of Bojleau 7 — What was Racine's 
opinion of him 7 — What was one of 
Boileau's great rules of criticism 7 — 
Did Racine and Corneille adhere to 
this rule 7 

Page 297. 

What do "Athalie" and the '• Cid " 

inform us 7 — Why must the imitator 

of the tragedy of the ancients, he as 

much a lyrical is a dramatic poet 7 — 



What is T^p character of the Cid of 
Corneille? Of Athalie of Racine 7— 
Wiiat would have been the coiise- 
qiieiice if the French tragedy hud an- 
vaiiced luriher in the path pointed out 
by Corneille and Racine? — What was 
the consequence of the lyrical part of 
the aiicient tragedy being omitted in 
that of Fran eel 

Pa-ge 298 
What advantage has it been to 
French tragedy that it has been so 
much occupied with the rhetoric of 
the passions 7— Upon what is the i)t e- 
ponderance of this founded in the 
French tragedy 7 — What shows the 
partiality ot "the French for the rhetori- 
cal i)art of their tragedy 7 — How v.ould 
we perceive that the French trasedy 
is the child of the antique? — What is 
Racine's character as expressed in 
Athalie ? — What play is Voltaire's mas- 
ter-piece 7 



LECTURE XIII. 

Page 299. 

What is the subject of this T,ecture7 — 
In what was the 17th century rich 7— 
What is said of the philosophy and 
system of thinking of the 18th century? 
— What is necessary in order to under- 
stand the changes which then took 
place in Europe 7 — What is saifl of the 
16th century 7 — What commenced with 
the 17th century 7 

Page 300. 
What is said of Bacon 7— Of what 
error were his followers guilty? — Can 
the fault be ascribed to Bacon 7 — What 
was a celebrated saying of his? — What 
is said of him in relation to the natuval 
sciences 7 

Page 301. 
In what does he say were the an- 
cients to blame in their natural philoso- 
phy 7 — What did-he mean to designate 
by this 7 — What does he assert of man 7 
—What are we to understand by this? 
— Where may we find a perfect state- 
ment of the true relation between God 
and nature? — What does the figure ex- 
press 7 — What may we obtain from thia 
simple maxim 7 

Page 302: 
What is the proper distinction be- 
tween nature and the Deity 7 — What 
are the two extremes of philosophy 7 — • 
How is the middle path between these 
extremes expressed 7 — Who besidea 



i20 



QUESTIONS. 



Lord Bacon esterted an influence over 
philosophy durine; the 17ih and 18th 
centuries .'—What is said of this influ- 
ence '—What was at this time the state 
oi'the nations of Europe 7 

Page 303. 
Who founded the system of national 
law ?— Is the system defective 7-^What 
was the conseciuence of the universal 
morality bein? founded on nature and 
reason, by Grotius and his followers 1 
—Was' evil or good produced by the 
doctriues of material right, and the 
statesmanship of reason, durin? the 
last half of the ISth century ?— What 
was the effect of the international law 
of Grotius, between 1648 and 1740 ]— 
Between 1740 and 1772 ]— What was 
its eflect subsijquent to the last date ] 

Page 304. 
What is said of the influence of Gro- 
tius -; — With whom may he be com- 
pared 7— For what did he exert him- 
self? — What was one of the indirect 
effects of Protestantism ?— Has Grotius 
had many followers']— What does the 
author consider a sure token of declin- 
ing religion ]— What was the influence 
of Descartes upon his own age and the 
following one ?- Of what is Descartes 
a proof 7 

Page 305. 

Was his system ever much diffused 
through Europe 1 — What has found 
many imitators 7— What was it his de- 
sire to be 7— What did he for this pur- 
pose resolve to do 7— What was the 
consequence 7— Is it possible to attain 
philosophical truth or political faultless- 
jess by forgetting the past 7— What is 
the consequence of an attempt so to 
do 7 

Page 306. ^^^"^ 

What are in reality Descartes origi- 
nal opinions 7- 'What is usually sup- 
posed to have been a great merit of 
Descartes 7— How did he make the 
distinction between mind and body 7— 
What is said of philosophy after- the 
time of Descartes 7— From whom did 
Descartes borrow the idea of proving 
from reason alone the existence of 
God 7— In what did the system of the 
old philosophers differ from that of 
Descartes 7 

Page 307. 

What IS the consequence of attempt- 
ing, like Descartes, to explain from 
reason the being of God 7— Who found- 
ed a new sect in France 7— What is 



said of Malebranche7— Of Iluet 7 - Of 
Fenelon 7— Of Bossuet 7 

Page 308, 
What kind of style is generally the 
most appropriate vehicle for the truths 
of reliaion 7 — What, however, is true 
in respect to Bossuet 7 — What did he 
resard as a fit subject of the eloquence 
of the pulpit 7 — How does Bossuet con>- 
pare with the contemporary poets 7— 
In what does the charm of his style 
consist 7 — What is said of the styles of 
most poets 7 — -What was Voltaire's 
opinion of Corneille? 

Page 309. 
Of Racine 7— What is the author's 
opinion of Racine 7— What would have 
made Haciiie a greater poet 7— -How 
does Bossuet compare with Racine 7 — 
Of what are his writings examples 7— 
After what is the French literature 
modelled 7 

Page 310. 
What is necessary with the literature 
of every nation whose refinement is 
subsequent to that of others 7 — What 
gave the Roman literature a character 
and excellence of its own 7— What pro- 
duced the same eflTect on Bossuet 7— 
Of whom is he the equal and rival 7 — 
In French literature, what took the 
place which the idea of the greatness 
of their country occupied in the writ- 
ines of the Romans 7— What was reli- 
gion 7— What is said of Racine? 

Page 311. 
What is said of the dramatic art of 
his time 7 — In what respects is the 
Spanish poetry superior to the French? 
-What party save many distinguished 
M'riters to Fra'nce 7— What was the ef 
feet on the French literature of the 
controversies which they introduced 7 
— What was the subject of most of 
their contests? — What occurred in the 
5th and 6th centuries 7— 16th and 17ih ? 

Page 312. 
What is said of the Provincial Let- 
ters of Pascal 7- Who were his oppo- 
nents 7— How did he write concerning 
religion? — How was this mode first 
adopted 7— Who copied the sophistry 
of Pascal?— Who was Bayle?— What 
is said of philosojdiy in the last pait of 
the 17th century 7— What was the ten- 
dency of the new doctriues of Bacon? 

Page 313. 
Why did Locke receive greater fa- 



QUESTIONS. 



4J1 



vor tnan Hobbes 1 — Why were his er- 
rors the more dangerous ]— Who are 
in reality the disciples of Locke 1 — 
What in general may be said of the 
doctrine that the only true knowledge 
is that shaped out by the senses aiid 
experience I — What is said of New- 
ton ? 

Page 314. 
What did his pretended disciples 
consider as a weakness in the mind of 
Newton ? — What shows that Newton 
had thought on all the highest subjects 
of reliection ] — Who were the first peo- 
ple of Europe, in literature, in the ISth 
century ? — What produced the modern 
French philosophy 7 — Did the French 
philosophy long continue the same ] — 
How was it in Germany ? — What is 
said of Voltaire?— How did the ISili 
century generally make use of the phy- 
sical k'nowledije it inherited from the 
17th] " ^ 

Page 315 
What does Voltaire show in all his 
writings 7— In what did he do more 
harm even than in his derision of reli- 
gion ? — What is said of the historical 
iiiemuirs of France 1 — Can they lie con- 
sidered as history 1 — Did the French 
literature possess' any original work 
of history ? — Who endeavored to sup- 
ply the defect 1 

Page 316. 
Was he successful 1 — What influence 
did he acquire, however ?- — What is the 
essence of this mode of thinking, in le- 
spect to history ] — As regards politics ? 
How far did the followers of Voltaire 
carry his ideas ? — Who opposed them ? 
— Since when, has the past begun to be 
seen in a morf just point of view? — 
What yet remains in regard to past 
ages 1 

Page 317. 
What renders the spirit of Voltaire's 
histories still more unjust ? — What did 
he endeavor to make us believe ? — 
When did free-thinking arrive at its 
greatest heisfht ? — Was Voltaire well 
acquainted with the character of his 
countrynien ] — How did Montesquieu 
pnntrihute towards the formation of the 
philosophy of the ISth century 1 — What 
assisted to' increase the general relaxa- 
Ton of all principle ? 

Page 313. 

Why did many of the great French 

naturalists remain free ironi the preva- 

'snt SDirit of irrelision 7 — How should 

36 



BufTon be classed 1 — What tvere the 
social manners and constitution of 
modern Europe 1- — What is said of 
Rousseau?— What renders his influence 
over his age more hurtful ? — When 
does error assume a form ol real dan 



Page 319. 
Did Rousseau find admirers and de- 
fenders ? — What was his theory 7 — 
What e.xcited the admiration ofVol- 
taire ? — What is said of the age in 
which Vohaire lived? 

Page -320. 
Who gave its form to the spirit of 
the ISth" century 7 — What did Helve- 
tins prove 7 — \^'hat is his doctrine ? — 
What did Rousseau intend to do7— 
What advantage would it have been 
had he done so ? — What is said of Dide- 
rot ? 

Page 32] . 
^^'hat peculiarly distinguished him ? 
— What does he say of religion ? — What 
is openly stated in many of the writ- 
ings of this school 7 — Wliat was the 
most extravagant form of the Atheisti- 
cal system 7— What shows the whole 
spirit of this system 7 



LECTURE XIV. 

Pa?e .3->2. 
What has the French lansna^e pos- 
sessed since the time of Louis XIV. ? — 
Has Moliere since been equalled 7— 
What is the peculiar charm of La Fon- 
taine 7 — Who. and in what, forms a 
connection between the old and new 
schools .' — In what is Voltaire unri- 
valled ? — What is the difference be- 
tween the French and English minor 
poems and songs ? — How does poetry 
become local 7 

Page 223. 
^\"Tlat is the object of poems that 
treat only of moiiern society ? — Are 
marks of genius ever found in this 
species of poetrj" 7 — Upon what does 
the beauty of these pieces depend i — 
Can a heroic poem or tragedy be weir 
comprehended if translated into a dif- 
ferent language 7 — -What does every 
one recoanize in La Fontaine 7- On 
what does a Frenchman's admiration 
of him depend ? — At present, how cnu 
manv of Moliere's works only be ad- 
mired 7 — i«.tve the efl^ects- of his writ 
ings been fortunate or otherwise ? 



422 



QUESTIONS. 



Page 324. 
What has been a subject of reproach 
against the higher French comedy of 
the ISth century ?— Of what was Dide- 
rot the inventor] — What is the orisi- 
nal French cliaracter ] — Do the French 
oooks of the ISfh century show this 1 — 
To what must this i^e ascribed ? — What 
acquired a complete predominance 
over the old spirit of the French? — 
What is the influence of materialism 
on poetry and fancy ] — What became 
predominant in the new philosophy? 
Whence came the predilection for the 
Doetry of England 1 

Page 325. 
Who made use of it 1 — Is its influence 
still apparent in French literature ? — 
What desire is still undiminished 1 — 
What species of writing was the fa- 
vourite of the literati of the new 
fjchool 7 — What did romance become 
ill the hands of Voltaire, Rousseau, and 
Diderot '—Had they followers 7— Who 
were the most distinguished of these ? 
— -Why did Voltaire, Rousseau, and 
Diderot so often use the romance? — 
Whom did the French imitate in this? 

Page 326. 
What is Richardson's rank as a 
writer of romance? — What was the 
cause of the decline of his popularity ? 
Who are the best modern imitators of 
Cervantes I — What is the best of all 
romances in miniature ? — What is the 
pnipose of the species of romance 
wliich Sterne invented ? — Have his 
French imitaiors equalled him? — How 
do tlie English and French romances 
compare with each other ] — What cir- 
cumstance has lieen very nnjirojiiiious 
to French rnmaiue I — \\'hal is the 
character of the French prose of the 
ISth century? 

Page 327. 
What is the character of the prose 
of Voltaire ?— Of that of Diderot ?— Of 
that of Buffon?— Of that of Rousseau 1 
— How do BufFon and Rousseau com- 
pare with each other and with Bos- 
suet? 

Page 328. 
Did poetry ever revive among the 
French, how would they best attain 
great excellence in it? — Why can an 
imitation of anotlier nation never be 
successful? — When should the founda- 
tions of national character and national 
poetry be laid ? — In what is the lean- 
ing of the English towards a French 



I taste in poetry, apparent ? — To wbut 
did Pope and Addison contribute V-- 
i What can we perceive in the originat 
! poems of Pope? — Of what does Young 
' afford an example ? — How did Thomp- 
! son express his feelings ? — What was 
i the origin of the national love of Os- 
si an? 

Page 329. 
What is diffused over the lyrical 
poems of England ? — What produced a 
love for old ballads and popular iioenis 1 
— Did they occupy a large portion of 
English literature? — To what did the. 
higher kinds of poetry gradually sink 
in France ? — WHiat fostered the love of 
ancient national ballads in England?— 
What was the state of poetry during 
the last century, compared with that 
of ancient times ? — Mention four of the 
most celebrated Italian authors of this 
century, and the characteristics of their 
styles? 

Page 330. 
What are the merits of the English 
and French dramas ? — How do they 
compare with each other, and with 
the Italian? — By what are the criticisal 
books of the English distinguished ?— 
What is the most original department 
of German literature? — In what have 
the English surpassed all other na 
tions? — W^ho occupies the first plac« 
among their historians? 

Page 331. 
W^hat is evident in Hume's writings • 
— What would have caused him to be 
considered by posterity as the author 
of a great national work ? — How does 
i he write of the early periods of English 
history 1 — What rank does Robeftson 
h"ld as a writer, in regard to style? — 
What is his character as a historian? 

Page 332. 
In what respect can we never equal 
the great historians of antiquity ? — 
How'can we surpass them? — In order 
to do this what style is the best? — 
What are the faults of the language 
of Gibbon? — Of his style? — W^hy "is 
Gibbon's work an offensive one at bot- 
tom ? — How do Gibbon, Robertson, and 
Hume appear when compared with 
other writers? 

Page 333. 
What was Roscoe's style ?— Coxe'sl 
— Fox's? — What is the cause of the 
decline of historical writing in Eng- 
land?— Why should history and ph.lo 
I sophy be united ?— In what work.? it 



QUESTIONS 



423 



he want of satisfying -views conspicu- 
0US? — What is the real importance of 
he histories of mankind 1 



What only can supply a proper 
knowledge of the origin, and present 
cniKliiimi of hiiniaii nature] — What is 
always tlie predominant idea in these 
false histories of mankind ? — What is 
the coiuiition of their authors'? — What 
did tile philosophy of sensation display 
in France? — Why did it take a ditfer- 
ent course in England ? — What is said 
of Berkeley 7 — Uimn what point did the 
philosophy of that time never come to 
any satislactory conclusion 1 

Page 335. 
How should we consider nature, to 
obviate this? — With what idea are we 
familiar?- — What conviction, however, 
had heen lost? — What was Berkeley's 
belief?— Into what system" did Hume 
fall .' — What oidy has been attempted 
since his time ? — What is the ruling 
principle of thought with Adam Smith 
and all the later English philosophers ? 

Page 336. 
"What should we have m additum to 
moral feeling and sympathy? — What 
is nulispensai)le for our welfare ? — 
What is the faith of the English ])hilo- 
sophers? — Why are they confined in 
their philosophy ?— How do the Eng- 
lish compare with the French in re- 
gard to philosophy ? 

Page 337. 
Why must England >et undergo a 
great crisis in her" philosophy and mo- 
rality, and religion? — Why does error 
appear to be less dangerous when open 
and comi)lete than when half-formed 
and disguised 1 — What has occurred 
of late years in France ? — What French 
writer has given his eloquence exclu- 
sively to religion ? — To what is he too 
much attached ? 

Page 333. 
What attempts have been made in 
France and Germany ? — By whom 
have these attempts been supported ? 
—By what obstacles have they been 
opposed ? — What is the most imjjortant 
change in French literature of the last 
years ? — When had this return to a 
higher morality been begun 7^ When 
did it beein to obtain its perfect influ- 
ence ?^What has France at all times 
possessed ?— What is said of Hemster- 
huys and his writings? — What two re- 



markable philosophers hare greatiy 
contributed to this return ? 

Page 339. 
What errors have both of these 
authors? — Wliat is the principal error 
of St. Martin ?— What has this error 
prevented ? — To the adherents of what 
school does he belong ? — To what did 
St. Martin devote the wiiole of his 
talents? — What did BonaM attempt? — 
In a philosophical point of view, for 
what may Bonald be blamed ? 

Page 340. 
What excuse has he ? — How have 
many champions of Christian philoso- 
phy injured themselves ? — What is the 
case with Bonald 1 — Why cannot a 
radical change in philosophy easily oc- 
cur in Euiriand ? — Has there been any 
want of illustri(nis writers, however, 
in England ? — What was the character 
and subject of Sir William Jones' 
works ? — What has Burke been to 
Europe and particularly to Germany 7 
— What was his character 1 



LECTURE XV. 

Page 34"2. 
What was the case with the false 
philosophy in England 7 — Were there 
any exceptions to this in England and 
France ? — Is the general tone olthousht 
in these countries yet altered 7 — What 
is still manifest among the latest 
writers of France? 

Page 343. 
How may materialism be regarded 
in a scientific point of view 7— What 
are its influences in regard to morality, 
national welfare, and religion 7 — Has 
this system at present any followers 7 
— What is its state in Germany 7 — What 
was the cause of its not becoming very 
decided in Germany 7 — What-, how- 
ever, there paved the way for vicious 
theory 7 

Page 344. 
In what point of view did Leibnitz 
benefit Germany ? — What was his char- 
acter ?— What is his chief (liult?— And 
its effect 7 — What era does he mark 7— 
Has his system ever exerted an exten- 
sive influence 1 — What was the case 
with Spinoza? — What is the greatest 
error of S|)inoza 7— What did his doc- 
trines tend to destroy 7 

Page 345. 
From whose system is that of Spi- 



424 



Qrh>T10NS. 



rioza derived ? — What was the charac- 
ter of Spinoza's morality 7— What len- 
ders him stioiis wlien opposed to ad- 
versaries who do not understand him 7 
— Why cannot he be said to have pi>s- 
sessed a natural inspiration ? — Was 
there any diflerence between Spinoza's 
system and the atheism of the 18th cen- 
tury .' — What was the character of this 
atheism i 

Page 346 
What renders an error more perni- 
cious? — Why? — To what other philo- 
sophy is that of I.eil)nitz similar 1 — 
Wliat is the character of his ])liiloso- 
phy 1 — Who are the adversaiies of 
Leilmitz .'— What is his hypothesis 7— 
With what does it coincide .' 

Page 347. 
How did Leibnitz attempt to solve 
the difficulties concernins the connec- 
ti'in of the mind and the body 7 — Did he 
succeed 7 — To what may his celebrated 
justification of God on account of the 
existence of moral evil, be compared 7 
— In what manner only can the philo- 
sophy of reason answer the question 
of the existence of evil in the world 7 
— For what does a celebrated philoso- 
pher say that the world was created 7 
— Are either of these answers satisfac- 
tory to reason or philosojyhy 7 — Wiiat 
is the difference between the Leibnitz- 
ian ideas, and the philosophy of anti- 
quity? — What was the ellect of the 
philosophy of antiquity upon man! 

Page 348. 
How was the philosophy of Leibnitz 
brouaht into fashion in Germany 7 — 
Whar is the difference between a sect 
which lays hold of active life, and one 
which is confined to schools?— What. 
however, did the scholastic system 
prevent, in Germany 7 — What was the 
effect of the writings of Leibnitz and 
Wolf, and their successors 7 — For 
what founder of a new epoch did they 
prepare the way 7 — Did the 16th and 
17th centuries produce many great 
German writers 1 

Page 349. 
What is said of the German transla- 
tion of the Bible?— Whence have the 
best German writers derived much of 
their power, life, and simplicity 7 — Are 
there any faults in this translation 7 — 
What attempt has been made in late 
times ? — What w^as its success 7 — Who 
shares with Luther the merit of the 
German translation of the Bible 7 — 
What was the character of the writings 



of Luther ?--What do we perceive is 
nearly all of them 1 

Page 350. 
What does the author say respecting 
Luther'' — In what respect does Gei^ 
many surpass all the rest of Europel 
^Can those succeed who endeavor by 
tricks of politics to lead the i)eople ac- 
cording to their own desires 7 — Who, 
however, are guilty of the greatest 
crime? — How^ has the power of the 
people as yet been directed ? 

Page 351. 
What besides religious subjects did 
the popular writing of northern Ger- 
many embrace? — What two authors 
are mentioned 7 — Of what does the 
popular poetry of Germany consist? — 
What is the character of the master of 
Nurnberg 7 — How does he compare 
with Chaucer and Marot 7— What is 
said of the opinion which literary men 
have of Jacob Bohme? 

Page 352. 
By whom, in his time, was philoso- 
phy cultivated in England and Protest- 
ant Germany 7 — What is the character 
of Bohme's writings? — How does he 
compare with Milton, Klopstock, and 
Dante? — What was the character of 
his language? — What was the perma- 
nent effects of the Thirty years' war, 
upon the literature of Germany 7 — ■ 
What was its effect while it actually 
raged 7 — Where did Opiiz seek for 
models? — What was the state of Hol- 
land in his time ? — Is his excellence 
borrowed from any foreign literature? 

Page 353. 
What is he generally called ? — What 
was he fitted by nature to be ? — What 
is the character of his writings?— How 
does he compare with Klopstock ? — 
What was the character of Flemming's 
poetry 7 — Was he equal to Opitz 7 — 
What was the fate of German poetry 
after 16487 — What two authors Intro 
duced a false taste 7 

Page 354. 
What was the condition of the Ger- 
man language from 1648 till the middle 
of the last "century 7 — What was the 
political condition of Germany during 
the same period? — What causes after 
that time tended to revive the intellect, 
manners, and language of Germany 1 
— By what obstacles were these causes 
at first opposed 7 — Whom, and in what, 
did the first of the better lyrical poets 



QUESTIOMS. 



425 



of the IStli century resemble ?— What 
vvfts the chnracter of Hagedorn and 
Ultz?— OfHaller and Gleim ] 

Page 355. 
What was the fateof Kleist, Kronenk, 
Elias Schlegel, and many other revirers 
of German laiisnnee and poetry ? — 
What is said of" Frederick II. ?— Who 
A'ere some of his foreign favorites ? — 
VVIiat (lid Klopstock express in his 
comparison between Frederick and 
Caesar .' — How did Caesar act in re-spect 
to the Roman language 1 — Why, how- 
pver. need we not regret the want of 
the union of German writers which 
r-e'lerick had it in his power to effect 1 

Page 356. 
In what is the argument of thos« 
who defend Frederick, wrong ] — To 
befriend and guide ihe intellect of his 
people, what should a monarch do 1 — 
How does the evil influence of Voltaire 
over France, compare with the good 
inriiieiice of Klopstock over Germany 7 
— In what was Klopstock conspicuous 1 
WImt w;is llie character aiul influence 
of the Messiad 1 — What is Klopstock's 
most successful poetry 1 

Page 357. 
What is the difference between his 
prose and poetical works I — How does 
he compare in this respect with iMilton 
and Virgin — Was the poet himself, or 
the nation, satisfied with the Messiad 
as a whole 1 — How did Klopstock bene- 
fit the German literature! — In what 
design did Klopstock attempt to assist 
the scholars of Germany 1 — In what 
<lid he differ from them in his attempts 1 
—What is the character of the Herman, 
of Klopstock 7 

Page 35S. 
What parts of German poetry did 
Klopstock seize 1 — What did he over- 
kiok 1 — What scholar, and poet have 
attempted to supply this omission? — 
What was the character of these two 
writers 1 — How does Oberon compare 
with Tasso's poem? — In what has 
VVieland been useful ? — What is the 
character of Wieland's prose works? 

Page 359. 
What is the character of Gessner's 
works? — What is the best means of 
recalling a language from entire cor- 
ruption! — WhaJt two causes prevent 
tnc Messiad from becoming a universal 
tavorite? — Why was it a great error 
rn Alopstock to wish to banish rhyme ? 
—In what was Klopstock mistaken 



concerning the ancient German songs 
and poems .' 

Page 3f)0. 
In what languages, is alliteration to 
be found? — Why is not rhyme as ne- 
cessary in the German as in the French 
language? — For what does Wieland 
deserve much praise? — What led Wie- 
land and Adelung into bigoted para- 
do.x ? — What are some of the absurdi- 
ties of Adelung ?— When did Gottsched 
fix the goldeti age of German litera- 
ture ? 

Page 361. 
Why was he not correct? — For what 
should Germany be grateful to Ihe 
earlier writers ? — What is the charac- 
ter of the works which appeared in 
Germany from 1750 till ISOO ?— What 
has distinsuished the whole of this pe- 
riod ? — Why can we class each of the 
generations of this period ? — What 
writers come in the first generation ? — 
Why does the learned Jesuit Denis de- 
serve particular mention ? — What three 
prose writers of this generation are 
mentioned? 

Page 362. 
How may we learn the difficulties 
which Winklemannhad in forming his 
style ? — What is the character of Kants' 
writings ? — How should the juvenile 
w^orks of Lessing be considered ?^ 
What would have rendered Klop- 
stock's writings better 7— What waa 
the effect upon" the German writers, of 
the difficulties with which they had to 
contend 7 — How has the German litera- 
ture degenerated lately 7 



LECTURE XVI. 

Page 363. 
What is the principle defect of the 
modern literature of Germany 7 — What 
is it necessary to do. ere we need hope 
to point out where this harmony should 
be sought? — Why is the time not yet 
come for a complete history of German 
literature? 

Page 364. 
What succeeded the long feuds be- 
tween Austria and Prussia? — Did the 
first establishers of the German litera- 
ture overcome the obstacles by which 
they were opposed, or not 7— When 
was the genius of the second gti.'^ra- 
tion of German writers first developed 7 
What gave them a boldness and facil 



426 



QUESTIONS. 



Ity 1- Who are the most distinguished 
poets of this epjch? 

Page 365. 
What is the character of the popular 
writers who also appeared at this 
epoch? — What was the character of 
tJiis epocli 1 — Wiiat other authors are 
also of this generation? — What is the 
character of the writers of this genera- 
tion? — What did the adherents of the 
first generation assert ?— What authors 
disprove this, however ? — By what 
was the language enriched in this 
epoch ? — Into what classes had poetry 
somewhat before this period, been di- 
vided? 

Page 366. 
What were the subjects of the first 
class of poets ? — Of the second ?^What 
■was attempted to be established be- 
tween these two extremes ? — What 
two paths did the writers pursue in 
this attempt? — What did " Goetz of 
Berlichingen with the iron hand," pro- 
duce? — What is the character of that 
work ?— What was the fault of this 
new turn of things? — What is neces- 
sary before a theatre can assume an 
air of high perfection? — What are its 
best harbingers 1 

Page 367. 
Did Lessing produce a favorable ef- 
fect upon the German theatre by his 
criticism? — To what did the transla- 
tions of Corneille and Racine give 
place?— What was the effect of the 
translation of Shakespeare? — For what 
was Lessing adapted as a critical 
writer ?— What was his character ?— 
What forms the most distinguishing 
feature in the genius of Herder? — ^^What 
was his character ? 

Page 368. 
How has the increase of the taste 
for art been promoted among the Ger- 
mans?— In what two fields only can 
the German intellect exert itself?— 
How was taste at first cultivated ? — 
What kind of philosophy harmonizes 
best with a love of art ?— What do the 
later writings of Winkelmann show ? — 
To what did Lessing devote himself in 
his maturity?— In his earlier pursuits 
how had he written? — What is the 
characters of Sultzer and Mendelsohn ? 

Page 369. 
What is the character of Garve?— 
Of the philosophic romances of Wie- 
'cand ? — What was Lavater's real char- 
acter ? — What is the character of Les- 



sing's controversial writingu? — Wha 
was Lessing's opinion of Leibnitz ?- 
What is the character of the metaphy- 
sics of Lessing? 

Page 370. 
How does he compare with Kant ?— 
Wliat was one of his favorite notions ? 
— What was the cause of the mistakes 
of Lessing and Leibnitz? — What did 
Lessing establish in the most enlight- 
ened parts of Germany? — Into what 
were his principles converted by Nico- 
lai and others? — How has infidelity ap- 
peared in Germany ?— What was the 
effect of the flourishing condition of 
Germany ? 

Page 371. 
How might the Emperor Joseph II. 
have been expected to promote 
science? — What was his fault in re- 
gard to the sciences? — What period is 
next considered ? — What shall we be 
enabled to do by viewing distinctly 
these different generations ? — What 
determine very frequently the charac- 
ter of the genius of an author? 

Page 372. 
Who belong to the third generation ? 
— What had a mighty influence upon 
the German literature? — Of what did 
the public, for whom the German 
authors labored, consist, before this 
time ? — What was the effect of the 
revolution? — How might this epoch be 
characterized by one word ? — How 
does the author make use of the word 
revolutionary in this case? — What is 
the disthiguishing mark of the third 
generation? 

Page 373. 
What is the character of the writings 
of the youth of Schiller ?— What is ex- 
pressed in some of them ? — What 
change was there in his after career ? 
— What was the state of the authors of 
the second generation in respect to 
political events? — Who formed an ex- 
ception to this? — How did the authors 
of the third generation differ from those 
of the preceding one ? 

Page 374. 
What are the characters of the differ- 
ent writers of this generation? — When 
can neither of two parties be entirely 
in the right? — What can be proved by 
reference to the history of Schiller? — 
What do many of the latest German 
works exhibit ? — What was the effec 
of the philosophy of Kant auring thr» 
generation? 



QUESTIONS. 



427 



Page 375. 
How was the philosophy of Kant 
Beneficial? — What vvas the character 
of Kant's style 1 — Whence arose Ter- 
minology ?— What is its present condi- 
tion 1 — What are the errors of Kant's 
philosophy? — From what did he form 
a system of national faith ? — Did he find 
believers or followers ? — In what re- 
spect are his doctrines of morality and 
law valuable? — Of what do they form 
an example 1 

Page 376 
What is the chief merit of Kant in re 
gard to this subject ?— How might he 
have rivalled Bacon ? — -Why cannot 
philosophers be taken into the histori- 
zh] picture of the latest period ? — For 
what has Germany been distinguished 
since the time of Kant ? — What^advan- 
tages have the German philosojjhers 
had since then? 

Page 377. 
Why is Heinrich von Hardenburg 
mentioned as one of those who assisted 
in removing the errors of Kant ? — What 
consideration should quicken the en- 
ergy and sustain the confidence of the 
age ?^ — When did Goethe's mature 
works first become known and ad- 
mired? — What is their character ? — In 
what has Goethe erred sometimes even 
m his mature years ? 

Page 378. 
Which of his works will in future 
years maintain his fame ? — For what 
kind of poetry do many think Goethe 
better fitted than for dramatic ? — Has 
he ever fully succeeded in ihe epic ? — 
What seems to be his proper spnere ? 
— With what English and French 
uthors has he been compared ? — In 
what is he superior to Voltaire ? 

Page 379. 
What shows the relation of the Ger- 
man poetry to the German stage ? — 
Who was the true founder of the Ger- 
man drama ? — How are his historical 
and philosophical works to be consid- 
ered ] — -Why are his philosophical 
tracts valuable ?^ What have some 
bought in respect to Schiller's philo- 



sophical pursuits? — Why is this opin- 
ion incorrect ? — How are Schiller's 
false notions, at one time, respecting 
ancient tragedy to be considered? 

Page 3S0. 
What was the character of Henry 
Collin ? — Why was it necessary for the 
author to confine himself to very nar- 
row limits in regard to German litera- 
ture? — Why can he not give any cer- 
tain opinion respecting the literature 
of the 19th century ? — What is the pre- 
sent condition of the German art and 
poetry ? — What have assumed a new 
character in Germany since the middle 
of the last century ? 

Page 381. 
What must have a favorable effect 
upon German liierature ? — What is the 
condition of the spirit of sectarianism? 
— What is the condition of the sect of 
the Illuminati ? — Of the Kantians? — 
F?etween what two parties did the con- 
flict in German literature, at first lay 1 
— Who next? — And next ?— What ap- 
pearance ilid the contest assume in the 
time of Kant ? — In what department 
is Empiricism the ruling system? — Of 
whom is Idealism the system ? 

Page 382. 
Has German literature ever had a 
o-olden age. or a new school? — What 
foolish enmity has been forgotten? — 
At what conclusion should we arrive 
if we considered the remarkable strug- 
gles of intellect which occurred during 
the last century, in a more general 
point of view? — What were the mov- 
ing causes of all these conflicts ? — What 
i has occurred in France? — How did the 
spirit of the time manifest itself? — How 
has the regeneration of fancy shown 
itself in many countries, but especially 
in Germany ? 

Page 383. 

Of what is Fichte an example ? — 
Whnt is his character? — Of what ia 
Tieck an example ? — What is his char- 
acter ? — Upon what does true judg- 
ment in ail things depend ?— What does 
the author say has been his object in 
these Lectures? 



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